


The Birth of a Storm

by imnotoverlyobsessive



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: BAMF Daenerys Targaryen, Canon Rape, Canon-Typical Violence, Daenerys Targaryen Deserves Better, Eventual Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, F/M, Fix-it fic, Game of Thrones now with 100 percent less dragon death, I can't put anything else without spoiling it but if you ask me personally I'll tell you, I'm doing my best, I'm one of those weirdos who skips to the end of a fic before bothering to read it, My title sucks leave me alone, POV Daenerys Targaryen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Queen Daenerys Targaryen, Slow Burn, and other canon rapes, but the only depictions of it will be as it happens in canon, fuck D&D, fuck season 8, it's not graphic, it's okay I like spoilers too, my best just isn't very good, no beta we publish our first draft like men, ptsd from sexual assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:54:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 23
Words: 61,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21644002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imnotoverlyobsessive/pseuds/imnotoverlyobsessive
Summary: This is the story of Daenerys Targaryen's journey from episode one to the end that should've been.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Khal Drogo/Daenerys Targaryen, one sided Daenerys Targaryen/Jorah Mormont
Comments: 242
Kudos: 197





	1. The Last of the Targaryens

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I ain’t own shit, yo.
> 
> All details and situations in this fic are possible within canon. Extensive research has been done to make sure all events could potentially take place in this universe.
> 
> Shout to my girl Nost for being awesome but also for giving me her honest opinion when I’m brainstorming. She will, at some point, edit a video specifically for this fic! In the meantime, go check out her other videos and subscribe to her channel so you know right away when the one for this fic is out! https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC3hHwj0PzX7GZKYNFRWHXUQ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys marries Khal Drogo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like so many of us, I was enraged by season eight. Enraged and heartbroken. The misogyny, the inaccurate portrayal of women and their relationships, the inaccurate portrayal of characters in general- these are the things that angered me the most. I intend to fix everything I can as best I can and do each character justice. You should know before going in to this that this fic really does begin in episode one. I'm retelling Game of Thrones from the beginning, from Dany's point of view. I searched for fanfiction to help me cope with the disaster that was season eight (and some of season seven), and while there are some wonderful fics out there, none of them were quite what I was looking for. I found that so many people are focused on the romance between Dany and Jon, or Jon's point of view, or alternating between points of view. None of these things are what I imagined when searching for a fic, so I resolved to write one myself. I am so, SO done with male points of view. I couldn't care less what they are thinking or feeling. Therefore, this fic will focus on a woman's perspective in a world where they are at a tremendous disadvantage. It will be primarily the TV version. I haven't read the books. Please note, too, that this will be a fairly long fic, and it will take me some time to get it up and running since I do work full time.

_“It’s done, Your Grace. The Targaryens are gone.”_

_“Not all of them.”_

Chapter One: The Last of the Targaryens

Daenerys could feel the warmth of the sun on her skin as she looked out at the coast before her, the heated breeze blowing gently through her hair. Her hands rested on the stone of the balcony, warmed by the sun. It was a lovely day; hot, but Daenerys had never minded the heat. She had grown up with it, never having left Essos. The sea, too, was beautiful. Not terribly far from where she stood was her birthplace. Just to the northwest was the home of her ancestors, and west of that was the kingdom they had built. She thought of it often. 

It was one of the last days she would be there, in the relative safety of Illyrio’s home. This, what was coming, would be a step towards her marriage to a man she’d never met. 

A step towards her brother returning to Westeros to sit upon their father’s Throne. Daenerys wondered what the Throne looked like, as she often did. Her brother had seen it, although she never had. The last person in her family to sit upon it had been murdered months before she was born.

“Daenerys!” Her eyes fluttered briefly when Viserys’ voice drew her from the silence of her reverie, and she turned her head towards the sound. She heard his footsteps getting closer and moved from the warmth of the balcony to the interior of the palace.

“Daenerys!” he said again, stepping into the bathing chamber. “There’s our bride to be.” Well, at least he seemed to be in a decent mood. Viserys was taller than she, and his silver hair matched her own in both color and and the way it seemed to be relatively untamable. Daenerys’ hair needed near-constant attention if she were to keep it maintained, and she had long since given up on it. Her brother, too, seemed not to care overmuch if his hair was a wild mess about his head. He always wore the Targaryen colors of red and black, but she rarely did. She had always felt as if he thought her to be a secondary Targaryen, even in such simple things of him choosing her wardrobe. 

He continued to approach her, arms outstretched with some flimsy fabric laying across them. “Look,” he said, “a gift from Illyrio.” She walked towards him, her bare feet cold against the stone floor. 

“Go on,” Viserys encouraged. “Feel the fabric,” He smiled down at her hand touching the dress when she reached for it. “Mmm. Isn’t he a gracious host?” he looked up with a smile.

“We’ve been his guests for over a year and he’s never asked us for anything,” Daenerys voiced. It had been some time since Illyrio had invited them into his home, but even so, Daenerys still couldn’t quite comprehend how unfailingly kind the Magister had been to them, a pair of foreign orphans on the run.

“Well, Illyrio’s no fool,” Viserys hadn’t stopped smiling since he entered the room. “He knows I won’t forget my friends when I come into my Throne,” he stopped smiling at this point and wordlessly handed off Daenerys’ new dress to one of the servants. 

“You still slouch,” he told her. He often berated her for this, reminding her it was unbecoming of the sister of a king. She had never told him that she was not the sister of a king, as her only living brother was not a king. He reached around and untied her dress from her neck, brushing her hair over each shoulder. She knew what was coming. She also knew that if she objected, she would anger him, or wake the dragon, as he so eloquently put it.

When he said, “let them see; you have a woman’s body now,” and pulled her dress down to her waist, she stared at him blankly, giving away no emotion. When he let the dress fall into a pool of fabric at her feet and examined her body, as he sometimes did, she showed no emotion. She looked directly ahead of her, forced herself to think of other things. The warmth of the sun, the calls of the birds. She imagined herself flying through the air like a bird, far away from this place, from Viserys, from the assassins, and from her husband-to-be.

“I need you to be perfect today,” he told her, his eyes still on her body and his hands still on her waist from examining her. Viserys’ hands had always been far too cold for her liking, and she wished he would refrain from touching her at all. He lifted his gaze to her face, “can you do that for me?” While technically a question, it was by no means a request. This was a command. An order. She looked up at him, parting her lips with unspoken objections. “You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?”

Her only response was a soft “no,” and he nodded his understanding before turning and walking away.

He stopped at the doorway, saying, “when they write the history of my reign, sweet sister, they will say it began today,” he held her gaze as he left the room. The history of his reign, indeed. And what kind of reign would that be, she wondered. What would she be in this written history? Would she be a scribbled note off to the side, merely a means to an end?

As his footsteps faded, she turned towards the steaming bath in the center of the room, climbing the steps towards it. The closer she got, the more she could feel the heat rising from the water, so different from the cold of the tile on her feet. She stepped into the water, feeling the heat soak itself into her skin, into her blood, into her bones.

“It’s too hot, my lady,” came the voice of the servant girl. Daenerys ignored this statement. Her concern was unnecessary; the water, after all, was soothingly warm.

* * *

The birds sang around them as they stood under an awning, waiting for her husband-to-be. Viserys and Illyrio stood in front of her, Viserys’ cape fastened to his tunic with a dragon pin. She wore two of the very same dragon pin to hold her dress together at the shoulders. Her initial judgement of the dress’ fabric as flimsy was correct. Viserys had said, after all, that she should let people see her body now that she was a woman. She supposed that the way you could see almost every detail of her body in it would have that effect. Regardless, it was humiliating to wear such a thing and call it a dress, gift or otherwise. 

“Where is he?” Viserys demanded of Illyrio.

“The Dothraki are not known for their punctuality,” Illyrio informed her brother. Indeed, they must not have been, for they had been waiting long enough that Daenerys was able to hold on to hope that these riders would never come.

Her hopes were dashed, however, with the sound of horse hoofs against the ground. When the riders rode up towards the base of the stairs, Daenerys wondered which one of these men she was to marry. 

Illyrio descended the stairs towards the riders. “Athchomar chomakaan, khal vezhven,” he said, which she could only assume was a greeting in whatever language these men spoke. “May I present my honored guests? Viserys, of House Targaryen, the third of his name, the rightful King of the Andals and the First Men, and his sister, Daenerys of House Targaryen,” He said this much in the Common Tongue, so perhaps this Khal spoke it after all? 

She could only hope he did know the Common Tongue. How else was she to speak to the man who would be her husband? One man had ridden his horse closer to the base of the stairs. The man was looking at Daenerys. She surmised that this man must be Khal Drogo. He was the largest person she had ever laid eyes upon. He sat higher on a horse than anyone she had ever seen, and even from such a distance, she could see his muscles ripple with each of his movements. How terrifying he was, up on a horse with such a commanding gaze. Commanding indeed, she was sure. She was to be given commands from one man right up until the moment that man gave her to yet another man who would give her only more commands.

Illyrio continued to approach the riders and spoke to them in their own language once more. Viserys leaned close to Daenerys, gripping her arm too tightly with his cold hands, as he always did and saying, “do you see how long his hair is?” he pointed out as the man in question rode his horse in circles, looking at Daenerys all the while. “When Dothraki are defeated in combat,” he continued, “they cut off their braids so the whole world can see their shame. Khal Drogo has never been defeated. He’s a savage, of course, but he’s one of the finest killers alive. And you will be his queen,” the way he whispered the last statement shot ice down her spine. 

Illyrio turned towards her then. “Come forward, my dear,” he said with a gentle expression. Viserys let go of her arm. 

Daenerys took slow, purposeful steps forward, descending the stairs as slowly as possible. The hot breeze blew through her paper-thin dress with every step she took, and she feared she may fall over. When she reached the base of the stairs and stood before the warrior king, high atop his horse, she tried to mask the terror that was in her expression, but she knew it must’ve shown through her eyes. She was able to make out his features far better than she had been able to from atop the stairs. His nose was straight and his beard was well maintained, but what stood out to her the most were his eyebrows, harsh and strong. These were not the closely manicured eyebrows of her brother, or the unkempt ones of those she’d known on the streets. These were the brows of a warrior, of someone who had been a warrior for many years; there was a slash through one, showing her that he had been in close combat on more than one occasion. She wondered if, from his expression and that of his men, it was their custom to frown rather than smile. She wondered, too, if this man would ever smile at her, or she at him. As she felt just then, she feared she would never smile again.

There was greenery all about them; the delicate beauty beauty of IIllyrio’s garden and the elegant white stones of his house a stark contrast against the harshness of Daenerys’ future husband. 

He rode away, and Daenerys looked down in relief. “Where’s he going?” Viserys demanded, rushing forward.

Following close behind, Illyrio said, “the ceremony is over.”

Clearly concerned for the army he so desperately wanted, Viserys spoke once again. “But he didn’t say anything. Did he like her?”

“Trust me, Your Grace,” began Illyrio, “if he didn’t like her, we’d know.” Illyrio led Viserys away to stare out across the Narrow Sea. Nothing could be seen over the horizon, of course, but sometimes Daenerys pretended she could see her homeland amongst the waves if she squinted her eyes just right.

“It won’t be long now,” Illyrio told Viserys. “Soon you will cross the Narrow Sea and take back your father’s Throne. The people drink secret toasts to your health. They cry out for their true king,” Illyrio promised.

Viserys moved away from the lookout and began walking down the garden path. “When will they be married?” he questioned of Illyrio, who was walking next to him by this point with Daenerys following behind silently, as she had always done.

“Soon. The Dothraki never stay still for long,”

“Is it true they lie with their horses?” Viserys wondered. He always had been vulgar, ever since she was a girl. She wondered, sometimes, why men were often so.

“I wouldn’t ask Khal Drogo,” came Illyrio’s reply. 

Her brother turned to the Magister, “do you take me for a fool?”

Illyrio turned to Viserys as well, saying, “I take you for a king. Kings lack the caution of common men. My apologies if I’ve given offense.” 

Viserys faced forward again. “I know how to play a man like Drogo,” the way he said the Khal’s name was mocking, condescending. Her brother was often one or both of those things. “I give him a queen, and he gives me an army.”

Give him a queen. Daenerys was still behind the two men, an afterthought. She had always been an afterthought. Her brother had never bothered to ask her what she wanted. Why would he ask? He didn’t care, so there was no need to ask. But the Magister… Perhaps he would be able to talk her brother out of selling her like property.

“I don’t want to be his queen,” she began in the gentlest voice she could muster, feeling so strongly as she did. Both men turned towards her, expressions of bewilderment on their faces. Had it truly never occurred to them that she might want something different than them? “I want to go home.”

“So do I,” said Viserys with one of his strange smiles. The Magister followed behind her brother as he walked towards her, saying, “I want us both to go home, but they took it from us. So tell me, sweet sister, how do we go home?”

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. How could she possibly?

“We go home with an army,” her brother said with a nod. “With Khal Drogo’s army,” he reached up to stroke her cheek, and said, “I would let his whole tribe fuck you; all forty-thousand men and their horses, too, if that’s what it took,” He kissed her forehead then, and he may as well have spit on her. When he walked away from her, she was left with her own thoughts of the nightmare he would put her through to reach his own goal.

* * *

Daenerys couldn’t remember much of her wedding. Even when only minutes had passed, she couldn’t remember much of it. She remembered standing next to her husband-to-be, this great beast of a man, and being instructed to say things in a language she didn’t understand. She remembered finding it strange that he hardly looked at her throughout the entire ordeal, and that it was strange, too, that she couldn’t hear anything but the sound of her own heartbeat, the blood rushing through her veins. She wondered if Khal Drogo was even the least bit afraid. She wondered if he had ever been married before, if he had ever loved before. She wondered if he would ever love her.

When she was seated next to her new husband as they were presented with their many gifts, the beat of celebratory drums reverberating throughout her body, she was caught between wanting it to be over with already and wanting it to last forever so that she wouldn’t have to face what came next. The heat of the sun at her back, at least, gave her some comfort through the whole thing, although the hard seat she rested upon wash as harsh as her husband appeared to be.

The snakes she was presented with were startling, to say the least. Whatever were they to do with snakes? The food at the wedding feast (Was it even a wedding fest? She didn’t know what the Dothraki called such things) seemed to her inedible, flies buzzing around whole carcasses with the stench wafting to where she sat, and the entire thing seemed incredibly primitive and foreign to her, with painted dancers being mounted by the men present. Some were only half clothed, although she supposed that the men went without coverings on their chest, too.

Her husband looked on as two men fought over one of the dancers. Although he did not take part in the cheers of the crowd, he did look more pleased than she had ever seen him before. 

“Itte oakah,” came her husband’s voice, nearly drowned out by the noise surrounding them. She watched, too, when one of the men prevailed over the other, slitting his throat before her eyes. The dancers flocked to the victor, clearly pleased with the outcome.

She looked from her smirking husband to the man who approached them. His skin was paler than that of the Dothraki, more like hers.

“Jadi, zhey Jora Andahli,” was the raspy greeting from the Khal.

“Khal vezhven,” said the man, with the pronunciation of someone who spoke the Common Tongue. He stepped closer to them, now looking solely at her. “A small gift for the new Khaleesi: songs and histories from the Seven Kingdoms,” he handed her a stack of books.

“Thank you, Ser,” she told him. Such a thoughtful gift, with consideration of her own origins. “Are you from my country?” She wondered.

“Ser Jorah Mormont of Bear Island,” he stepped back. She had seen Bear Island on maps; a small place in the North of Westeros. “I served your father for many years,” he nodded towards Viserys, seated nearby. “Gods be good, I hope to always serve the rightful king,” her brother nodded in appreciation. From his expression, he did not know or remember this man from his first few years of life. If the man had indeed known her father, she hoped to speak with him further.

Illyrio stood from his seat next to Viserys, approaching Daenerys and her husband. Two men carrying a box stepped forward, placing it before her. When they opened it, she saw was surprised at what she saw. She reached out and picked up one of the three heavy, scaled things, examining it more closely. It was rough to the touch, and felt to be more of a rock than anything else.

“Dragon’s egg, Daenerys, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai. The ages have turned them to stone, but they will always be beautiful,” The Magister told her. A most thoughtful gift, too, in honor of her house. Illyrio may not have saved her from her brother’s insistence on her marriage, but he and this Jorah Mormont, they both acknowledged where she had come from, and the acknowledgment was a kindness she was not used to.

Her husband stood and looked down at her. That must have been the end of the gifts, then. Putting the egg back in its box, she followed his purposeful steps down between the rows of quiet revelers. She was vaguely aware of each one’s gaze upon her as she walked past them, and she heard their steps behind her. They formed a path for her to where her husband stood, the reins of a white mare in his hand.

She stroked the creature’s head, the white fur soft against her hand. “She’s beautiful,” Daenerys voiced her thoughts, although she knew her husband couldn’t understand her. Her husband looked down at her, as silent as he had been upon their first meeting. She turned towards the man from her own country, “Ser Jorah, I- I don’t know how to say “thank you” in Dothraki,” she told him.

“There is no word for “thank you” in Dothraki,” he responded. A harsh language for a harsh people, she supposed. How, then, was she to tell anyone who would be around her anything?

Her husband moved around the horse to stand before her, putting his arms on either side of her waist and lifting her as if she were nothing more than a feather, placing her atop the mare he had gifted her. He walked towards his own horse, still in silence.

Her brother came up next to her, placing his hand on her mare, just behind her leg. “Make him happy,” he commanded. She knew nothing about how to do such a thing, however. All she had been told was to let her husband take care of it, to do what he wished. She said nothing in response to Viserys, following Khal Drogo as he rode away. 

Her husband brought her to a cliff overlooking the ocean. She looked out at the sunset, feeling its warmth on her skin, the wind blowing her wedding dress about her legs. Perhaps now she could do as she had always done when Viserys had inspected her body: think of other things, other places. She tried to focus on the sunset, the water, the breeze. 

She was still trying to focus on anything but her husband when he stood before her and began to remove his clothing. He reached out and touched her hair, and still, she focused on the breeze. But the heat of the sun was fading, its time above the ocean done. When he began to untie her dress, she couldn’t stop the tears that came from her eyes. She didn’t want this, she had never wanted to this, and she had no choice. Would her husband beat her if she didn’t do as he wanted, as her brother had? Would he yell at her if she objected? She didn’t know, and she was too afraid to find out.

She began to cry softly, more than just tears, and her husband looked at her and wiped a tear from her face, saying, “no.”

She fingered the dragon pin between her breasts, trying to ground herself, to remember who she was and where she had come from. “Do you know the Common Tongue?” she looked up at him.

He circled around to her front, pulling the pin from her dress and letting it fall to the stone they stood on. “No,” he said again.

“Is “no” the only word that you know?” she asked.

“No,” he continued to circle her, and she heard the clang of metal hitting the stone, and he reached underneath her hair and completely untied her dress. It fell to her waist, and she lifted her arms, trying to at least maintain a shred of dignity. He gripped her arms, his touch firm but not so much that it hurt, and lowered them to her side. He felt along her jawline, his hand cupping beneath it, then running down her side, brushing her breast. He pushed on her back, and she lowered herself to the ground, sobbing.

When she felt him inside of her, she couldn’t quiet her sobbing. It was painful and it was humiliating and she just wanted it to be over.


	2. A Thousand Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys learns about intimacy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the wait. I'll try to upload frequently, but again, I do have plenty of life stuff going on since the world perceives me to be an adult. Like I said, this fic is gonna take a long time for me to write. Anyway, I'll frequently be including quotes I like that relate to the mood of the chapter. There are some pretty great songs that I feel fit Dany's storyline (both in the good parts of the show and in this fic), and I've got a playlist that I listen to myself if anybody's interested. 
> 
> I'd like to point out, too, that while this fic will contain Joenerys eventually, please note that I have added the "slow burn" tag, and keep in mind, too, that this fic is not focusing on their romance. It's not a romance fic, and while there will be Joenerys content, it will not be the focal point. Romance is a secondary plot point here; this is because I'm not terribly interested in that aspect of Dany's storyline. That said, I won't give away the ending, but I will say that I am not one for unhappy endings, and I want our queen to be happy. She will be in my fic, and if you're here for the shipping and you're worried about whether Joenerys will be endgame (I'm a big shipping reader myself, trust me, just not as much for this specific fandom), I feel that you'll be pleased with the ending.

_I carry the weight of you in my heavy heart, and the wind is so icy, I am numb. I carry the weight of you heading back to start. With a thousand eyes on me, I stumble on._ \- Cher Lloyd, Sirens

Chapter Two: A Thousand Eyes

There were sores on the inside of her thighs, and her hands were rubbed raw from gripping the reins for so long. No matter how much better Daenerys had gotten at riding the Khal Drogo’s gift over the past few days, most of her body was in pain by that point. To make matters even worse, the pain between her legs was worsened by the constant pressure of being on the horse. She was given no time to rest, no time to heal, no time to adjust.

She supposed she could be one of those walking with the horde rather than riding. As she understood it, thanks to Ser Jorah, slaves and those of low standing amongst the Dothraki were expected to walk, whereas being allowed to ride was only a privilege given to those who had positions of importance. She wondered if these people saw her as important. They must have thought her foreign and strange. They were a dark people; their skin, their eyes, their hair, all their features were dark. With her unusual violet eyes, silver hair, and pale skin, she was a far cry from all those around her, save Viserys. 

The line of the marching horde extended further than she could see on either side; she couldn’t tell where it began or where it ended. The tall grass, too, seemed to go on forever. The further east they went, the hotter it became, and the less of a breeze there was during the day.

It was these sort of thoughts she had as she sat atop her mare, watching the horde ride past her from the side. Her dress from her time in Illyrio’s home had been brought for her, and it was tinged brown from the dirt of the ride. 

“You need to drink, child,” Ser Jorah approached her. When she sighed, he added, “and eat,” handing her a piece of dried horse meat, her hand aching in protest at the movement.

“Isn’t there anything else?” she asked him. She had had nothing but dried horse meat since her wedding. She hadn’t truly felt hungry since before her wedding, as it happened, and if she tried to force herself to eat more horse, she feared she may not be able to keep it down.

“The Dothraki have two things in abundance: grass and horses. People can’t live on grass,” Ser Jorah informed her as she reluctantly took a small bite of the tough meat. It was just as dry as she had known it would be.

“In the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are fields of ghost grass with stalks as pale as milk that glow in the night,” Ser Jorah informed her, looking at the horde ride past them. “It murders all other grass. The Dothraki believe that one day, it will cover everything; that’s the way the world will end,” she looked at him, wondering if there were any truth to it. 

Did her husband believe such things, too? As with everything, she had been unable to discuss his beliefs with him. He rode past her then as well, and she remembered the night before, and the one before that. She hoped he would not treat her thusly that night as well, but even she could admit that such a hope was in vain. 

Ser Jorah saw where her gaze was directed. “It’ll get easier,” he promised. Who was he, though, to make such a promise? What could he know of it, never having been in such a position? Daenerys decided she wanted to speak of it no longer, and rejoined the horde, leaving Ser Jorah to follow her.

* * *

It was a long ride before they were permitted to make camp, but with her hair whipping about her face, she couldn’t see much of it. One of Khal Drogo’s bloodriders, she had learned they were called, held her horse’s reins while Ser Jorah helped her dismount it.

“Khaleesi!” called one of her handmaidens as the three ran towards her. She gasped with both relief and discomfort when she was set on the ground, spikes of pain shooting up through her feet and into her legs. “Your hands,” her handmaidens examined her hands with concern. She found she had difficulty walking after having been on a horse for so long. Her legs ached and each step was worse than the last.

She had precious little time to rest before her husband came to her that night. Their tent was the largest by far, and it may have been the most comfortable. The furs were soft, the fire warm. No warmth could keep her husband from her, however. 

He had been rougher with her since their wedding night. She grasped the furs, trying to breathe through the pain. She whimpered and gasped as he took her. Since he seemed to not mind her pain overmuch, she no longer made as much of an effort to hide it from him. He treated her no better or worse for it, so why go through the effort? 

She stared at the dragon eggs, tightening her grip on the furs beneath them. _I am Daenerys Targaryen,_ she told herself. _I can survive this. I can survive anything._ With that thought, she endured the rest of her husband’s attentions, imagining herself becoming one with the flames.

* * *

The following morning, she said with her handmaidens surrounding her. Irri and Doreah cleaned and dressed her hands while Jhiqui washed her feet. She was still getting to know them, these young women who were not so different from herself. It felt strange having people addressing her as a queen, a khaleesi, having people attend to her every need. She wanted them to understand that she wanted them to be her friends rather than her slaves.

She stared at the dragon eggs, surrounded by candles. The Magister had been right; they were beautiful, each individual scale a slightly different shape and hue, but she often wondered about them.

“Have you ever seen a dragon?” she asked, turning to Irri.

“Dragon gone, Khaleesi,” Irri’s Dothraki accent was strong, and it took Daenerys some time to understand her Common Tongue.

“Everywhere? Even in the east?” Truly, gone? An entire species of great creatures, how could they all be gone?

“No dragon,” Irri reiterated. “Brave men kill them. It is known.” 

“It is known,” Jhiqui smiled up at her with a nod.

Doreah, who had been silent during their conversation, said, “a trader from Qarth told me that dragons come from the moon.”

“The moon?” Daenerys looked down at her in mild surprise. She’d heard many stories, to be sure, but this one was new. 

Doreah looked up at her, smiling, “he told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi,” Daenerys turned her gaze to her own dragon eggs as Doreah continued, “that once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and it cracked from the heat. Out of it poured a thousand thousand dragons, and they drank the sun’s fire.”

“Moon is no egg,” Irri giggled. “Moon is goddess, wife of sun. It is known.”

Jhiqui looked up again, “it is known.”

Daenerys turned towards the two Dothraki women, however. “Leave me with her.”

Doreah reached for the bandages as she finished cleaning Daenerys’ wounded hand; it didn’t sting as much, for which she was grateful.

“Why did the trader from Qarth tell you these stories?” Daenerys had her suspicions about Doreah’s past, but had never confirmed them.

“Men like to talk when they’re happy. Before your brother bought me for you, it was my job to make men happy,” Doreah told her, wrapping Daenerys’ hand.

So she had been correct, then. “How old were you?” 

Doreah didn’t look up from her task. “I was nine when my mother sold me to the pleasure house.” 

“Nine?” Daenerys was astonished. Astonished anyone could do that to a child, could do that to _their_ child. 

“I did not touch a man for three years, Khaleesi,” Doreah said with a laugh. Even so, twelve is hardly better than nine. At least Daenerys had the luxury of being a woman by the time such things were expected of her. “First, you must learn,” Learn? A thought occurred to Daenerys then. This had been Doreah’s profession, after all. She likely knew what she was doing.

“Can you teach me how to make the Khal happy?” she wondered.

“Yes,” Doreah told her, looking up with a smile.

“Will it take three years?” Daenerys did _not_ want to endure her husband’s attentions thusly for three more years.

“No,” having finished wrapping Daenerys’ hand, she shook her head.

* * *

When Doreah agreed to teach Daenerys how to please her husband, she had not been entirely sure what the lesson would include. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but having handmaiden sit atop her on her and her husband’s bed was certainly not it. 

“No, Khaleesi,” Doreah told Daenerys, gently turning her face. “You must look in his eyes always. Love comes in at the eyes,” Doreah leaned back and took Daenerys’ hands, interlocking their fingers. “It is said that Irogenia of Lys could finish a man with nothing but her eyes.”

“Finish a man?” Daenerys questioned. Her handmaiden said nothing, merely raised her eyebrows to get her point across. “Oh.”

“Kings traveled across the world for a night with Irogenia,” Doreah went on with her story. “Magisters sold their palaces. Khals burned her enemies just to have her for a few hours. They say a thousand men proposed to her and she refused them all,” Doreah leaned down towards Daenerys, who wondered if this Irogenia was someone Doreah looked up to. She wondered how Irogenia earned such respect with her profession.

Daenerys, though, had never been in a position the likes of which she was currently in, and it made her somewhat nervous. 

“Well, she sounds like an interesting woman,” Daenerys said. She had never seen her husband when he took her. “I- I don’t think that Drogo will like it with me on top,” she told Doreah, eyes fluttering and wide.

Doreah, however, was unconvinced. “You will make him like it, Khaleesi. Men want what they’ve never had,” Daenerys supposed that Doreah likely knew better what men liked than she did. “And the Dothraki take slaves like a hound takes a bitch,” Doreah continued. “Are you a slave, Khaleesi?”

The use of her title, the reminder of the station she had once had, in a way, and still felt as she did… it truly spoke to Daenerys. Doreah was right: she was Daenerys Targaryen, the last surviving daughter of dynasty hundreds of years old. She was a princess. She was not a slave.

Daenerys shook her head in response to her handmaiden’s question, looking away again. She was unused to the idea of participating in her husband’s attentions, and didn’t quite know what to do with herself.

Doreah pulled back, placing Daenerys’ hands on her hips as she moved them back and forth. “Then don’t make love like a slave,” Doreah told her, raising her eyebrows again.

Rising to the challenge in her handmaiden’s eyes, Daenerys flipped Doreah around so that she was sitting atop her, leaning forward. Doreah laughed at that, saying, “very good, Khaleesi. Out there, he is the mighty Khal, but in this tent, he belongs to you.”

“I-I don’t think that this is the Dothraki way,” Daenerys said nervously. What if Khal Drogo became angry with her? What if he hit her, as her brother did?

Doreah sat up, propping herself up on her arms. “If he wanted the Dothraki way, why did he marry you?” Doreah brushed Daenerys’ wild hair out of her face with the question. 

She had a point; Daenerys was quite clearly not Dothraki. She didn’t look Dothraki or speak Dothraki. She could barely ride a horse until quite recently. Khal Drogo must have seen this, seen her. He chose her anyway, though, didn’t he? Perhaps there was hope for her situation. 

Daenerys sent Doreah away, thanking her for her help. She waited in the tent for her husband, resting her body on the soft furs. The flickering of the candlelight soothed her nerves, the dragon eggs reminding her of who she was, where she came from. 

When her husband entered the tent, he was already naked. She pushed herself up onto her hands and returned his gaze. He approached her, clearly wanting to take her. She stared up at him unblinkingly as he kneeled down beside her on their bed and made to lift up her dress.

Daenerys turned towards him. “No, she said, placing a hand on his chest. Undeterred, he turned her around and once again attempted to lift her dress up. “No!” She told him again, firmer this time. As he tried to force her into submission, grasping her wrist firmly, she said, “ajjalan anha zalat vitiherat yer hatif,” which she knew roughly meant ‘tonight I would look upon your face.’

He allowed her movement of her hand, and she touched his face, then placed her hands on each of his arms, guiding him to lay down so that she could climb atop him. When she was permitted control of things, she found that it hurt her less. Once she grew used to the sensations, in fact, she found that she rather enjoyed it. He stroked the length of her body through her dress, watching her gasp softly. He sat up abruptly, and they continued to move together, their lips almost touching. 

It felt better than she expected, better than she had known it could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there you have it, chapter two. Thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, unrelated statements- I'll accept anything you've got, so please do have at it.


	3. Look Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys learns what it is to be Dothraki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's chapter three. I've done some editing of the first two chapters as well. For those of you wondering, season one will stay primarily as it did in the show, since I think they did that just about perfectly. After that, some things will branch off and change, but will overall follow the same route. There will be some major character changes in abilities and some in personality, but nothing you wouldn't see realistically in the characters, I don't think. I welcome feedback, of course. Again, this is based primarily on the show with a little bit of book content. I'll take some ideas from the books, but not a whole lot. Dialogue from scenes that are in the show is going to be mostly the same until we get further in. I apologize, too, for how long it takes me to write. I'm a slow-ass writer. Anyway, hope you like it, and please tell me your thoughts if you've got any.

_Who is the person you see when you look closer? Who am I going to be when it’s all over?-_ One OK Rock, Unforgettable 

Chapter Three: Look Closer 

Day by day, Daenerys grew better at riding; the saddle no longer hurt her as much, and her hands had grown accustomed to the constant feel of the reins in them. Day by day, she and Khal Drogo became closer. She had found that her husband’s company was not undesirable when she understood a bit more of the language he spoke. She found, too, that he was not without compassion, without kindness. He had been kind towards her as of late, at the very least. Once he was more open to listening to her, he was willing to allow her time to rest so that her injuries could heal. She had riding gloves now, as well as Dothraki clothing. She found it comfortable and well-suited for what was now a daily task.

Only when she felt well enough to ride did Drogo permit the horde to begin their journey once more. They were going towards Vaes Dothrak, which she had learned was the sacred city of the Dothraki. At the moment, Daenerys rode beside Ser Jorah, whom had been educating her on Dothraki customs, as well as filling her in on bits and pieces of the language. Daenerys had learned that the Dothraki had a great many slaves, and that the majority of those marching with the horde rather than riding were either women or slaves themselves. Dothraki women were slaves in their own right, of course.

“Do the Dothraki buy their slaves?” Daenerys wondered.

“The Dothraki don’t believe in money,” Ser Jorah told her. “Most of their slaves were given to them as gifts.”

“From whom?” Who would give a human being as a _gift_? Well, her brother, she supposed. But then, he never gave anything unless he expected to receive something in return. She supposed that most people were this way.

“If you rule a city and you see the horde approaching, you have two choices: pay tribute or fight. An easy choice for most,” the knight informed her. “Of course, sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes a Khal feels insulted by the number of slaves he’s given. He might think the men too weak or the women too ugly. Sometimes a Khal decides his riders haven’t had a good fight in months and need the practice.” Daenerys turned from Ser Jorah, looking at the slaves ahead of her. Oh, how their poor feet must be aching. Her body was aching a fair amount, even though she was used to it now, but to walk for as long as these people had been- she could not comprehend it.

“Kash qoy qoyi thira disse!” yelled a Dothraki rider before her before whipping a slave harshly. The man had been carrying a large basket on his back, and to be whipped on top of it for no reason that Daenerys could see… This angered her.

When the rider whipped the man twice more, she had had enough, and she told ser Jorah, “tell them all to stop.”

He looked at her in surprise. “You want the entire horde to stop? For how long?”

These men giving commands and whipping people they owned, perhaps they should learn what it was to be commanded, to know what such a thing felt like. “Until I command them otherwise,” Daenerys said.

“You’re learning to talk like a queen,” Ser Jorah told her, the lines on his face forming into an expression of admiration.

She turned from him, facing front. “Not a queen. A Khaleesi.” She was Dothraki now, and she would do her best to live as Dothraki. She found, too, that command was not entirely unsuited to her. 

Daenerys dismounted her horse, having no need of assistance doing so any longer. Behind her, she heard Ser Jorah convey her wishes to her new people in Dothraki. She strayed from the much-trodden path and entered the tall sea of grass. She needed to clear her head, to be away from whips and chains, masters and slaves.

The sweet smell of the grass filled her nose, an underlying scent of dirt there as well. She felt stray glades beneath her riding boots, heard them crack with each step.

Before long, she found a small clearing. It was hot that day; there was no breeze, and so she was grateful that her handmaidens had braided some of her hair so not as much of it was against her neck. 

When Daenerys was looking at the grass surrounding her and inhaling its scent, she heard a rustling amongst the stalks of tall grass. Then there was the clang of a sword, the sound of horse hooves. The horse neighed as it emerged, and its rider revealed himself as her brother, waving his sword before him and pushing the stalks out of the way. His hair, as it always had been, was as wild as his eyes were. His clothes had begun to get dirty, for he refused the Dothraki clothing he had been offered. 

“You dare!” He yelled, bringing his horse to a stop before her. “You give commands to me? To _me_?” He dismounted, sprinting the short distance to where she stood, blade flashing in the sunlight. She took several steps backwards, feeling the grass against her back. When he reached her, he took her her throat in his free hand, turning her next exhale into a gasp as she struggled to get enough air into her lungs. “You do not command the dragon. I am Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. I don’t take orders from savages or their sluts. Do you hear me?” With his question, he raised his blade to her face, and as she stared at it, she did not notice the approaching riders.

Viserys gasped then, letting go of his grip on her throat, for his breathing had been cut off by the whip of Rakharo, one of her husband’s bloodriders.

“Hash shafka zali addrivat mae, zhey Khaleesi?” Daenerys caught some of the words, but was glad for Irri’s presence nonetheless.

“Rakharo ask if you want him dead, Khaleesi,” her handmaiden translated. Daenerys stared, horrified, at her brother squirming in the dirt, desperately trying to pry the whip from his throat. 

“No!” Daenerys exclaimed. As with most Dothraki she had encountered, Rakharo seemed to understand that.

He looked at her but did not make an attempt to further harm Viserys. “Ishish chare acharoe hash me nem ejervae nharesoon.”

“Rakharo say you should take ear, to teach respect,” Irri told Daenerys.

“Please, please, don’t hurt him,” Daenerys begged Rakharo. 

She noticed Ser Jorah in the clearing as well -how had she not noticed him there before?- and he gave her just the slightest nod of encouragement. His silent words were true, she was sure: she had no need of begging any longer; she had every right to tell Rakharo exactly what she did and did not want.

Schooling her face, Daenerys calmly said, “tell him I don’t want my brother harmed,” enunciating each syllable.

Irri looked up at Rakharo from where she stood. “Khaleesi dos halo meme new azisa.”

Rakharo seemed surprised at this. “Shafki,” he said, and he released his whip’s hold on a gasping Viserys. Daenerys tried not to let her relief bleed through to her expression.

Viserys pushed himself up onto his arms, yelling, “Mormont! Kill these Dothraki dogs!” He pointed furiously at Rakharo. Rakharo and Ser Jorah locked eyes for a moment before the knight looked back at Viserys. He stood up then, his face covered in dirt and his hair wild around him. “I am your king!” He stopped his foot on the last word, and he reminded her of an angry child.

Ser Jorah didn’t respond to him, though. He simply looked at her and asked, “shall we return to the Khalasar, Khaleesi?”

Viserys was furious, looking between her and Ser Jorah. Daenerys said nothing to him; merely nodded slightly and walked to where ser Jorah sat atop his horse, holding the reins of hers to his left. Irri, having fallen into step behind her, assisted her in mounting the mare, for which Daenerys was grateful.

She didn’t look back at her brother, but she did hear Rakharo speak to him. “Uh uh uh uh uh,” came Rakharo’s voice. You walk.”

Later, when Daenerys saw her brother again, his horse was tied to Rakharo’s, and Viserys was walking nearby, looking exhausted and worn, his face the very picture of humiliated fury.

* * *

Months after her marriage, Irri was helping Daeneys prepare for supper, braiding her hair as she taught Daenerys how to speak Dothraki. It was a difficult language; more so than the others she knew. But then, her brother had spoken little to her but Valarian when she was growing up, and the Common Tongue was easy enough to learn since everyone around her spoke it when she was a child, and children did learn languages far easier than their older counterparts.

“At jakar?” Daenerys attempted. She was currently working on the word for pride or prowess, and had not quite worked out the pronunciation yet.

“Athjahakar,” Irri corrected.

“Ath ja haker,” Daenerys tried again.

“Athjahakar,” repeated her handmaiden.

“Athjahakar,” Daenerys felt as if she had accomplished the roll of the R that time.

“Yes, Khaleesi,” Irri smiled at her, and Daenerys was quite proud of herself for getting it right. Then, Irri did something strange; she put her hand on Daenerys’ breast. 

“What are you doing?” Daenerys asked her.

“When was last time you bleed, Khaleesi?” was Irri’s response. Daenerys turned her gaze forward, trying to remember. “You change, Khaleesi.” Daenerys moved her hand to her stomach, bare from the top she wore displaying her stomach, and Irri put her own hand over it. “Me azhasavva vezhofoon,” which Daenerys knew meant that it was a blessing from their god, the Great Stallion. Although Danerys’ handmaiden went back to braiding her hair, she could think of little else but her apparent pregnancy.

* * *

When Daenerys told Drogo of her pregnancy, he was so thrilled she didn’t know how to respond. He had seemed unable to decide between picking her up and twirling her around and kneeling down to kiss her stomach. 

“Moon of my life,” he said, joyous passion in his eyes as he gazed up at her from where he kneeled at her feet, knees resting on the furs of their tent. He had begun to call her that, the moon of his life.

“My son and stars,” she told him, reaching down to brush his cheek with a soft smile. She had taken to referring to him as her sun and stars, which he most certainly was. Daenerys had come to love Drogo deeply, and she was relieved that he loved her in return. She had worried about it terribly before their marriage, and was relieved it had come to pass. 

They could not yet communicate much more than that, but Daenerys was working diligently with Irri on her Dothraki. Each day, she revealed a new word or phrase that she had learned to Drogo. He was tremendously pleased each and every time. 

“You grow more beautiful day by day,” he kissed her stomach again. She only caught a few words of what he said, but it sounded like he was telling her that she was beautiful and became more so each day. She smiled wider at him, and kneeled down with him.

She leaned in close to him, and his beard brushed against her. She took his face between her hands, saying, “I love you, my sun and stars.” He said nothing in response to her, only kissing her gently. He made love to her that night, there on the fur rug of their tent, and it was gentle and passionate. 

When he awoke for the day the following morning, she woke up with him for a moment, but he told her to rest for their child, kissing her lips and then her forehead before he left. 

* * *

Since Irri had brought it to her attention, everything seemed to be a sign of it. Daenerys found herself more emotional and wanting more attention from her husband. She found that her body hurt more frequently; her back and feet were particularly painful. She rested when she could and ignored it as best she could.

The worst of it, though, was the vomiting. She had woken Drogo up on more than one occasion to empty her stomach into a bucket that was now kept by the bed for her. Each time, though, he held her hair back for her so that she wouldn’t sully it, rubbing her back all the while. He brought her water to rinse the taste of it out of her mouth and held her as she fell asleep once more. 

What felt the worst for her physically, however, was not what was the most inconvenient. Most of what she dealt with, she was able to hide from prying eyes, for she felt unsure of disclosing such information, and so only herself, Drogo, and her handmaidens knew of her state. Eventually, her distaste for horse meat became too severe for her to force it down any longer. Daenerys resolved to speak with Irri about it during one of their lessons, working on words she’d need for her child. This one was “cry”.

“Laqikh,” Irri said for the fifth time.

“La-quit-h,” Daenerys tried. Irri repeated herself once more.

“La-qikh,” she attempted again.

“Very good, Khaleesi,” Irri’s praise brought a smile to Daenerys’ face.

“I must speak with you about something,” she told her handmaiden, who looked at her questioningly. “I find myself hungry, but I fear I cannot eat another bite of horse meat. Merely the thought makes me feel like vomiting. Perhaps there are some ducks?”

“Do not worry, Khaleesi,” Irri told her. “I find something for you.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Daenerys smiled gratefully.

When Irri left, Daenerys had nothing to think about but the heat from her body. It seemed to come from within her, and she swore she could see steam rising from her skin if she looked close enough. She wondered if the fire of Drogo’s child made her feel hotter than she was, or if it was simply the heat of the Great Grass Sea itself.

Either way, though, she supposed it matter not. Steam comforted her, and so did warmth. If her son filled her body with heat that fought to emerge from her, then let heat emerge from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey since I'm a lazy bitch I'm changing everything we're supposed to understand to English and you can use context clues to figure out what's said in what language, because again: lazy bitch.


	4. The Breaking Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Viserys steps over the line.

_I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath; scared to rock the boat and make a mess. So I sat quietly, agreed politely. I guess that I forgot I had a choice. I let you push me past the breaking point. I stood for nothing, so I fell for everything. You held me down, but I got up. Already brushing off the dust. You hear my voice, you hear that sound, like thunder, gonna shake the ground. You held me down, but I got up. Get ready ‘cause I’ve had enough._ \- Katy Perry, Roar

Chapter Four: The Breaking Point

After months of riding towards Vaes Dothrak, Daenerys’ thighs were muscled, adept at grasping the flanks of the horse she rode. The ache of her muscles had dulled, just as her stomach had grown. Khal Drogo had announced publicly that she was pregnant, and their march towards the Dothraki’s sacred city took on a new meaning. 

They had passed the Great Grass Sea, or at the very least gotten closer towards the edge of it. The tall stalks of grass were behind them, and before them lay trees and rolling hills. The horde took months to travel due to its size, and Daenerys relished each night she spent with her husband, with her handmaidens. 

They never stayed anywhere longer than a couple of nights, and she hoped that Vaes Dothrak would break that cycle. She had learned to enjoy riding, but she was tired. With each passing day, she grew even more weary. The Dothraki midwives had explained to her that the child growing within her needed to eat, needed energy for itself, and so it took of hers what it could. Daenerys didn’t mind this so much as she minded not feeling as if she ever could get enough rest.

As things were currently, the horde approached the city. No walls surrounded it, which she found surprising, but there was an archway with two horses atop it. Drogo and his blood riders entered first, being at the head of the horde, yelling joyously as they kicked their horses into a gallop along the path, their hooves kicking dust up into the hot air.

Daenerys stopped her horse, Ser Jorah beside her. Her skin had browned further. There was the slightest breeze; she could feel it in her hair. Her handmaidens had put more braids in it than she was used to, for which she was grateful. She had learned very quickly that riding a horse with one’s hair in one’s face was rather difficult. 

“Vaes Dothrak,” Ser Jorah said, looking out at the view before them. “The city of the horselords.” And what a city it seemed to be. It was like no city Daenerys had ever seen. A city of wood and tents, surrounded by trees and hills and mountains that seemed to go on forever, a bustling hub for a nomadic people.

While Daenerys smiled, taking in this sacred place of her husband’s, Viserys had a different thought.

“A pile of mud,” he spat, and she turned to look at him. “Mud and shit and twigs. Best these savages can do,” he said with a quick glance in her direction.

“These are _my_ people now,” she told him, a firmness in her voice she had never known could be directed at her brother. “You shouldn’t call them savages.”

He frowned, his wild hair spilling from the tie he used to hold it back. “I’ll call them what I like, because they’re _my_ people,” Daenerys turned away, seeing no point in arguing with him further. “This is my army,” Viserys continued. “Khal Drogo is marching the wrong way with my army,” and with that, he rode off ahead of them.

Daenerys breathed in the dust his horse kicked up. There was smoke rising into the sky from each of the houses she could see, and she could smell unwashed bodies even stronger before her than she could behind her.

She wondered if her brother really did own Drogo’s army, however, if he wasn’t the one in command of it. 

“If my brother _was_ given an army of Dothraki, could you conquer the Seven Kingdoms?” She asked of Ser Jorah, steering her horse onward towards Vaes Dothrak.

“The Dothraki have never crossed the Narrow Sea,” came his deep voice. “They fear any water their horses can’t drink,” he explained.

“But if they did?” Daenerys pressed.

Ser Jorah tilted his head in thought. “King Robert is fool enough to meet them in open battle, but the men advising him are different.”

“And you know these men?” He must, if he knew enough about them to speak of them thus.

“I fought beside them once, long ago. Now Ned Stark wants my head. He drove me from my land,” he had told her this story, of what he had done.

“You sold slaves,” Daenerys reminded him. Taking the lives of people in one way requires a fitting punishment, did it not?

“Aye,” he agreed. But then, Ser Jorah seemed to be a kind man. Perhaps he had a reason.

“Why?” She asked.

“I had no money and an expensive wife.”

“And where is she now?” Daenerys wondered.

“In another place, with another man,” she wondered why the statement didn’t seem to bother him as much as one might expect.

* * *

Daenerys had gotten used to the scent of the Dothraki. At first, it had seemed like the people, as a whole, smelled of horses and unwashed bodies. They didn’t bathe as much as she had grown used to those around her doing, but she had come to appreciate the earthy smell. They smelled like dirt and horses and the sweet grass they so often rode through. And after months of acting as one of them, she did, too.

Vaes Dothrak was a lovely place. There were trees and grass surrounding each building, and the density of the trees and the buildings themselves allowed for more shade than the Great Grass Sea had done. Daenerys didn’t mind heat and the sun never burned her skin, but she found it preferable to not have its brightness blind her. It was nice, too, to be able to sleep in a house rather than a tent, even if it was a round dome of a house that was made of wood and reeds.

Finally she was able to fully appreciate the many gifts she had been given upon her wedding. Her Dothraki clothes had been custom-made for her, but the jewelry she’d been gifted with needed no customization. Carved wood and stone, leather and metal- she had many things to choose from, to adorn herself with.

Daenerys was in her private quarters, deciding on a necklace to wear for that night’s supper when her brother stormed in. She had wanted to help him feel more at home with the Dothraki, so she had ordered clothes custom made to his measurements and sent her handmaiden, Doreah, to invite him to dine with her, keeping Irri at her side in order to allow her to continue her task of mending clothes.

Doreah must have worded the offer in a way that was displeasing to Viserys, however, for he was furious when he entered, holding the sobbing girl by her hair. Daenerys placed the necklace she had been holding with the others when she heard Doreah’s cries, worried for her friend’s safety. 

Viserys still wore his filthy Targaryen clothing, as he refused anything Dothraki. He refused, too, to have any of the so-called savages to wash his clothes or assist him with his hair, and so both had become entirely unsalvageable.

“You send this whore to give me commands?” Viserys yanked Doreah’s head up by her hair before throwing her on the carpeted floor. “I should have sent you back her head!”

“Forgive me, Khaleesi. I did as you asked,” Doreah said from the floor. Her hair was a mess and her face was red, wet with tears. 

“Hush now. It’s all right,” Daenerys held her hand out towards Doreah, keeping her expression and tone gentle. She resolved to comfort her friend later, once she had dealt with Viserys. “Irri,” she turned to her other handmaiden, “take her and leave us.”

“Yes, Khaleesi.” Irri did not question her, simply helped a sobbing Doreah up and helped her out of the room.

“Why did you hit her?” Daenerys demanded.

Viserys didn’t answer the question, ignoring it completely as he took slow, dangerous steps towards her. “How many times do I have to tell you? You do not command me.”

“I wasn’t commanding you,” she told him, holding both hands out in an attempt to placate him. “I just wanted to invite you to supper,” she gestured to the table that she’d had set for them and the clothes she’d had made for him.

He turned his head towards the clothes, ignoring the food, just as he ignored her words. “What’s this?” He questioned.

“It’s a gift. I had it made for you,” Daenerys said, keeping her voice calm.

“Dothraki rags?” He picked up the garment, eyes ablaze with wild fury. “Are you going to dress me now?” 

“Please,” she attempted to placate him yet again.

“This stinks of manure! All of it!” He threw the clothing at her, his voice raising on the last syllable, throwing a heavy gold belt at Daenerys as well.

She raising her arm to protect her body from the belt, swatting it to the side with a gasp. “Stop- stop it,” she was firmer with him that time, firmer than she had ever been.

He made no move to respond to her words; merely advanced towards her, and she fought the urge to back away as she had always done. “You would turn me into one of them, wouldn’t you? Next you’ll want to braid my hair,” he mocked.

“You’ve no right to a braid. You’ve won no victories yet,” Daenerys reminded him.

Viserys’ face contorted with fury. “You do not talk back to me,” he told her, dangerously quiet, veering his hand back with a grimace. She fell to the ground when he hit her, and he climbed atop her, as he had done so many times before. “You are a horselord’s slut,” he attempted to force her hands down. “And now, you’ve woken the dragon.” 

The side of Daenerys’ face was stinging from where he slapped her, and her wrists ached from being held too tight. Viserys was nothing, she realized. He meant nothing to anyone, and he would never mean anything to anyone. He hadn’t meant anything to her for years. 

Daenerys, though, she meant something to more people every day. She had a husband that loved her, handmaidens that were friends, and before long, she’d have a child. She wasn’t just a woman anymore: she was a queen, a Khaleesi. Viserys was no one, but she was a Khaleesi. And a Khaleesi did not allow inferior men to insult them, nor did they allow themselves to be attacked.

She turned to her side as best she good, grasping the gold belt he’d thrown at her. Exclaiming with effort, Daenerys thrust it upward, hitting his face with as much strength as she could muster; more strength than she’d ever felt before.

She raised herself up, standing above her cowering brother. She had never struck him back before, and the astonishment on his face proved that he had never expected her to try.

“I am a Khaleesi of the Dothraki,” she panted, voice shaking as she watched Viserys slowly stand, his eyes wide with shock. “I am the wife of the great Khal, and I carry his son inside me,” she raised her chin with pride, refusing to back down, to cower ever again. “The next time you raise a hand to me will be the last time you _have_ hands.”

He shook as he left, limping although he was uninjured, save for the cut on his face from where she’d struck him.

Daenerys didn’t move for several minutes after he left. Eventually, her actions began to register with her, and she looked down at her hands, turning them over and over, examining each finger closely. They were the same hands she’d always had, she knew. And yet, somehow, they weren’t. They were different. They were stronger. 

_She_ was stronger. 

* * *

_Fire. There was fire all around her. She saw images in the flames. People, faces. She saw her husband, her brother, a blonde woman she didn’t recognize, and more corpses than she could count. She saw a child, too; a child that was the very picture of her husband. She watched as the fire consumed them all, their skin blackening before her eyes. She saw children, several of them; some with silver hair and some with black hair. She saw herself, too, standing next to a surly man her own age. She barely caught a glimpse of the crowns atop their heads before she herself was consumed by the flames. Except… She did not burn. She tried to lift her hand before her face to examine it, but found she had no control over her limbs. She looked down at her body, only to find nothing there, only fire. With her fear, the flames grew higher, and she begun to realize: she wasn’t being consumed by fire. She_ was _the fire._

Daenerys awoke with a start, gasping and clutching her chest, feeling her pounding heartbeat. Drogo slept soundly beside her, and she turned towards him, leaning into him for comfort. She went back to sleep then, and would not recall her dream for many years. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is. I hope you enjoyed it. Please tell me what you think of her dream. I'll also accept any and all theories for what you think the dream indicates, although I think it's probably fairly obvious to a reader even if it isn't to her. If you've got any ideas for what you think'll happen in the future, take a guess! I love hearing theories. Oh and if you're worried about where things'll go, just shoot me a message and I'll tell you. I'm somebody who skips to the end of a fic myself before reading the whole thing, and I wouldn't want anybody wasting months of their life reading a fic they're not gonna like the ending of. I think most people will be satisfied with it, though. I hope they will, anyway.


	5. The First Burning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Viserys crosses the line again, only for the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m using the High Priestess from season six as as our one in this bit, just for continuity.

_Think that you’ve got me figured out. All of this time, without a doubt. Don’t even think that you know me.-_ One OK Rock, The Way Back

Chapter Five: The First Burning

Each day, Daenerys spent a great deal of time gazing at the dragon eggs she had been gifted. She reveled in the rough scales on each of them, how they seemed to glow with warmth, as if there were a candle inside each of them. 

True, she had been told they had been turned to stone, but perhaps… Dragons were made from fire, were they not? Perhaps if they were exposed to more heat…

Daenerys eyed the brazier there, intended to keep the tent warm. She was uncertain; in fact, she doubted it would work at all, but even so, she placed an egg on the brazier with shaking, nervous hands. The little candle flame she had imagined to be inside of the egg did not flicker, but nor did it grow, much to her disappointment. 

She was so focused on the egg that she did not notice when Irri entered the tent, nor did she hear the questioning “Khaleesi?” but instead reached out to grasp the egg in both hands, lifting it from the brazier. The warmth was pleasant, and Daenerys wanted to cradle it to her chest.

“Oh, Khaleesi!” Irri rushed forward, snatching the egg from Daenerys’ hands. It must have been painful, for she immediately dropped it upon the brazier again. Even so, Irri’s concern for Daenerys was such that the handmaiden grasped Daenerys’ hands, turning them over to examine the palms. When Irri found them to be healthy and pink, she looked up at Daenerys in confusion.

Daenerys, though, saw hints of red on Irri’s wrists, and pulled her hands away so as to examine her friend’s. They were an angry red, the scales of the eggs having seared imprints of themselves into Irri’s flesh.

“You’re hurt,” Daenerys observed, looking up at Irri with concern.

She left the tent immediately, instructing her handmaiden to sit down, ignoring her protests. The soles of her bare feet crushed the grass and dirt beneath them, the blades grass finding their way between her toes. Daenerys’ head whipped around, eyes scanning the area for Doreah. 

Daenerys was grateful to have been able to find her other handmaiden within just a few minutes.

“Doreah!” She called out, and the girl’s head turned to her, her smile falling when she saw Daenerys’ bare feet and dressing gown.

Rushing over to her, Doreah said, “yes, Khaleesi?” 

“Please fetch the burn salve with some bandages immediately, and then meet me in my tent,” she gave Doreah no further explanation, turning on her heel and returning the way she came.

She ignored the stares she received, just as she did the silence that she left in her wake. She made quick work of returning to her tent. 

When she entered her tent once more, she found Irri sitting uncomfortably on one of Daenerys’ lounging chairs. Daenerys said nothing to her, only picking up the bowl of water she washed her face in every morning. It was fresh and cold in preparation for the following day, and so she brought it to her handmaiden.

“Here,” Daenerys said, holding it out to her friend, who merely looked up at her. “Please, put your hands in it,” she instructed. Irri complied, allowing the bowl to be set in her lap and putting her hands in the water.

Just as Irri was wincing from the abrupt change in temperature, Doreah entered with the burn salve and bandages. “Come,” Daenerys ordered. “Help me dress her wounds.”

Daenerys could tell that Doreah was surprised, but she did not object, nor did Irri. And so Daenerys knelt beside Irri, applying the salve to one hand while Doreah applied it to the other. When Daenerys had finished wrapping her friend’s wound, Irri grasped Daenerys’ hand in hers, and Daenerys looked up at her questioningly.

She thanked both Daenerys and Doreah with tears in her eyes, and both women smiledat her. Daenerys had a sneaking suspicion that no one had bothered to take care of either of her handmaidens when they needed it. With this in mind, she resolved to help them whenever possible, for they had been slaves for far too long.

* * *

The Dosh Khaleen, Daenerys had learned, were the widows of Khals who had been allowed to live out the remainder their days in their own temple. Some of the women were wary of her, with her silver hair and violet eyes, while others were curious. It was the High Priestess who had spoken with Daenerys the most, however. She was an elderly woman, as were most of the higher-ranking Dosh Khaleen, although the hair on her head had not yet greyed.

Daenerys was more than a bit apprehensive about consuming the stallion’s heart when she was told it was expected of her. She had nearly vomited at the thought of it when the High Priestess explained the ritual to her, and only agreed when her husband told her of its importance; what it meant to him, to their people. Even so, food was difficult enough for her to keep down as of late. A horse heart certainly would not be enjoyable.

She was eventually led to the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen, a tent filled with silent Dothraki. The High Priestess motioned for Daenerys to climb the steps of a platform in the center of the tent, and she obeyed, climbing each creaky wooden step to kneel upon the platform, the skylight in the tent allowing sunlight to shine down upon her, easing her nerves.

Another priestess brought out the stallion’s heart and laid it before Daenerys. She looked down at the heart, still oozing blood, and then she looked back up at her husband, sitting just a few paces from her. His expression didn’t change. Not to those who didn’t know him, at least. She could tell he was encouraging her silently.

Daenerys looked down at the heart, and the crowd surrounding her began to chant their wishes for her child.

“A boy! A boy! A strong boy!” they chanted, over and over.

Daenerys reach down to touch it with one hand first, then the other, and grasped it firmly in each, feeling the blood ooze through her fingers and underneath her nails. When she lifted it to her lips, she held her breath so as not to inhale in the scent, and then she took the first bite.

The chanting of the crowd got louder, and the High Priestess began to sing. “The prince rides!” Came the old woman’s voice. 

With each bite she took, it became both easier and more difficult to continue. It was firm yet chewy, and the taste of blood was overwhelming. She felt it begin to trickle down her hands and onto her wrists, and she felt it cover her mouth and cheeks.

Daenerys resolved to eat it as quickly as she could manage. She put her teeth around the flesh and yanked the heart down with both hands, looking Drogo in the eyes. He leaned forward, watching her intently. In response to her husband’s slight encouraging nod, she chewed and swallowed what was in her mouth before taking another bite.

"I have heard the thunder of his hooves. Swift as the wind he rides. His enemies will cower before him, and their wives will weep tears of blood,” sang the High Priestess.

It turned out that if Daenerys took large bites, as large as she could manage, she could eat the heart relatively quickly. It had only been a few minutes, and it was nearly gone already. The remaining flesh was in only one of her hands now, and she held it up to her mouth to shove another piece down. 

As the crowd chanted on, the High Priestess continued to sing. Daenerys wondered if the High Priestess had ever been on the other end of this ritual, and what had become of the child afterwards.

The thought was lost, though, when the nausea that constantly brimmed at the back of her throat was overwhelming, and she fell to her hands, coughing and trying not to let any tears fall. The chanting and singing had stopped, and she thought she might vomit the heart right back up before her people, her husband, and the priestesses. Daenerys wasn’t entirely sure how she managed it, but she forced herself to keep it all down. With one small morsel left, she lifted her hand to her mouth once more and forced in the last piece of the heart. 

Raising herself back up to her knees, she held her head high, the sunlight beaming down on her, and swallowed. Drogo had one of those small smiles on his faces; the ones she had only learned to spot after weeks of studying his face. 

“The stallion who mounts the world!” The High Priestess called out. Indeed, Daenerys thought; the heart of a stallion to feed the stallion that grew within her. “ The stallion is the Khal of Khals. He shall unite the people into a single khalasar. All the people of the world will be his herd!"

Daenerys stood, and the crowd silenced, as did the High Priestess. She opened her mouth to speak, and felt the drying blood crack on her skin. “A prince rides inside me!" She turned so as to address each and every one of her people that looked up at her. “And he shall be called Rhaego!" When she gave her son his name, she turned to face her husband, and he stood as the crowd began to chant the name.

She stepped towards the edge of the platform, and Drogo’s smile was even wider than her own. He picked her up by the waist and carried her around the tent once, the crowd cheering out their son’s name, before walking out with her in his arms.

He carried her all the way to their tent, where he bathed her gently, washing the blood from her face and kissing her each time he wiped around her mouth, laughing as she giggled. She smiled, too, as he washed her hands tenderly, cleaning the blood out from under her fingernails, out of each line and crease. And when she was clean once more, he made love to her in such a way that she thought he must be afraid she would break. 

* * *

The following evening, there was a traditional feast held to honor the Khal’s growing family. Daenerys was more at home there than she had ever been, even with her own brother. No meal with Viserys had held such laughter and joy.

The sound of the drums reverberated through her, and she laughed with Ser Jorah and her handmaidens. There were painted dancers, as there had been at their wedding, and they circled a fire pit in the center of the tent. Drogo sat not far from her, conversing with his bloodriders. 

“Daenerys!” Came her brother’s voice. The drumming and dancing continued, but Daenerys’ stomach dropped, and she felt the beginnings of dread pinprick the back of her mind.

“Where’s my sister?” Viserys called out again, stumbling forward. Daenerys could tell that he had been drinking. The flats of his feet seemed unable to find the dirt floor, and his body swayed with even the slightest movement. 

“Stop him,” Daenerys told Ser Jorah with quiet subtlety, and he responded by standing and walking towards her drunken brother. 

“Where is she?” Viserys asked of no one in particular, his voice unnaturally high. “Where is she? I’m here for the feast,” he held his hands out and smiled mockingly at the Dothraki warriors before him. “The whore’s feast?” Daenerys wondered if Viserys had forgotten that very few Dothraki spoke any Common Tongue at all. She wouldn’t have found it surprising if he had. Viserys forgot a great many things when he drank.

Ser Jorah reached him then. “Come,” he instructed, placing a hand on her brother’s arm.

“Get your hands off me!” Viserys exclaimed, swatting Ser Jorah’s hand away, then raised a finger to the other man’s face. “No one touches the dragon!”

“The sore-foot king. He walks,” Qotho said from his place beside Drogo, who laughed his response.

Viserys must have heard the voice, or perhaps just felt the urge to turn, for he turned to face her husband and waved.

“Khal Drogo! I’m here for the feast!” He walked forward, yet another mocking smile on his face.

“There is a place for you," Drogo said, motioning towards the slaves’ sitting area with his drinking horn.

Viserys raised his eyebrows and turned to Ser Jorah.

“Khal Drogo says there is a place for you,” Ser Jorah informed Viserys. “Back there,” he gestured with his hand.

Viserys said nothing to Ser Jorah, but turned to Drogo and shook his head. “That is no place for a king.”

Drogo, whom Daenerys had taught a small amount of the Common Tongue, lifted his chin and said, “you are no king.”

This, it seemed, made something snap inside Viserys, for he drew his sword, turning abruptly to face Ser Jorah and lifting the sword to point at the knight’s neck. The drumming had halted, and the partygoers had gasped collectively, for weapons of any kind were forbidden in the sacred city of Vaes Dothrak. Viserys’ actions were punishable by death. “Keep away from me!”

That was enough, Daenerys decided. She stood. “Viserys, please,” she begged of him, her voice ringing out across the tent. The only sound that could be heard was the flickering of candles and of the fire.

As the Dothraki hissed at the sword her brother wielded, he turned to face the sound of her voice. “There she is,” he said with a nod. Daenerys swallowed, still nervous, but raised her chin in defiance. She did not have to submit to Viserys any longer. She did not have to cower in fear of him. Even as he approached her, sword outstretched, she did not back down. 

Ser Jorah, however, seemed to recognize the danger, even if she herself hadn’t quite been able to comprehend Viserys’ threat. “Put the sword down. They’ll kill us all,” Ser Jorah warned.

Viserys turned on an unstable heel, sword pointing at Ser Jorah. “They can’t kill us!” He said maniacally. “They can’t shed blood in their sacred city,” he turned in circles, stumbling with each step, sword outstretched. He reached Daenerys, and she could feel her breath stop. Doreah’s breath left her entirely, and Daenerys pushed her friend away to relative safety. 

Viserys lowered his sword towards Daenerys’ stomach with a dangerous grimace. “But I can,” Daenerys could feel the point of his sword pressing into her through the fabric of her clothes. She sat back down, putting herself and her child as far from her brother as she could manage without further angering him. 

Daenerys was terrified. Not so much for herself, but for her son. Everything else seemed to fade away, and she was only vaguely aware of what was being said beyond herself and her brother.

“I want what I came for,” he said with one of his dangerous smiles. “I want the crown he promised me. He bought you, but he never paid for you.”

Daenerys hardly registered Irri’s translations in the background, but she knew that Viserys kept looking over at her friend and husband to make sure that the translation was indeed occurring.

“Tell him I want what was bargained for or I’m taking you back. He can keep the baby,” Daenerys’ lips parted with unspoken objections, but Viserys continued. “I’ll cut it out and leave it for him.

“Anha vazhak maan rek me zala,” came her husband’s deep voice, and she could hear the fury in his words. “Anha vazhak maan firikhnharen hoshora ma mahrazhi aqovi affin mori atihi mae!” It was at that point that Daenerys knew that her brother had committed a crime that the Dothraki could not forgive. She found she didn’t mind it, or the implications. 

Viserys’ eyes flicked back and forth between Daenerys and her husband. “What’s he saying?” His voice had returned to a calmer state, so perhaps he was in a more rational state of mind. Not that his state of mind mattered any longer, of course.

Daenerys was careful to keep her face expressionless and her voice even. “He says yes. You shall have a golden crown that men shall tremble to behold,” Viserys’ eyes left her and he turned to Drogo, who only looked on intently in response.

“Well, that was all I wanted,” he chuckled nervously. “What- what was promised,” he lowered his sword, smiling and chuckling again as if he had not just threatened the wife of a Khal in his own domain.

Her husband stood and walked towards her, and she stood to greet him. Drogo put his hand on her stomach, and she put hers atop it, closing her fingers around it and squeezing lightly. 

He had been afraid, too. He would not allow Daenerys’ brother to be killed without her consent, and she needed no convincing. Not a week ago, she had promised him that he’d lose his hands if he ever raised them to her again. This time, he hadn’t just raised a hand to her. He had threatened both her life and the life of her son. She met Drogo’s eyes, unyielding.

“Seize him,” her husband’s eyes never left her face, even as she turned her gaze towards her brother, who did understand the Dothraki command or see Drogo’s bloodriders behind him. 

He did, however, feel Qotho’s grip on his arm, and he felt the bone break. He must have heard it, too, for the sound of a bone snapping was no whisper. “No!” He screamed out. “No! You cannot touch me! I am the dragon! I am the dragon! I want my crown!” He thrashed in the bloodriders’ grip, but even one hand of a single man was far too strong for Viserys. Against both hands of two, he had no chance. The men forced her brother to the ground, and he cried out in pain and anger. When they broke more of his bones, he began to scream.

“Empty that pot!" Her husband’s voice was even louder than her brother’s screams, and when one of their people obeyed Drogo’s command, he stepped forward, removing his belt of golden medallions and tossed it into the pot.   
  
Viserys had stopped thrashing. Either he had given up on escaping or he was too confused with what was happening to attempt movement. He looked at her, his hair as wild about his face as it ever was, and his eyes were wide with terror.

Ser Jorah retook his place by Daenerys’ side. “Look away, Khaleesi,” he told her.

“No,” she said, having not taken her eyes off of her brother since she’d decided to accept his fate.

Viserys’ head whipped back and forth between Daenerys’ unflinching gaze and Drogo staring into the pot of melting gold.

“No, Dany,” he pleaded of her. He had not called her Dany since they were children. She supposed that he was still a child in many ways. In more ways than she was, it seemed. Perhaps that was why he had reverted to the nickname; or perhaps he was simply desperate and trying to play on her sympathy. 

Even as he said, “Dany, tell them. Make them!” She found that she had no sympathy left for him, and so she remained silent and unmoving. “Dany, make them,” he begged, his voice breaking as her husband grasped the handles of the pot and walked towards where Viserys knelt, broken arms trapped by the strength of the bloodriders. “No, you can’t!” He had begun to shake, and she could almost feel him quivering, even from as far from him as she was. “Just- Please! Dany, please!” He looked back at her once more, and that would be the last time their eyes ever met.

“A crown for a king,” said her husband in heavily accented Common Tongue, upturning the pot of molten gold over Viserys. He screamed even before the gold touched him. It lasted only a few seconds; he was nearly dead by the time the pot had been emptied and Drogo had knelt before Viserys. His limp body fell to the dirt floor with a metallic thunk, his eyes and mouth still wide in terror. His skin was reddened and burned, and the gold steamed off of his skull.

Daenerys looked on, and found that she felt no remorse for the man he had become. The brother she had once loved had died long ago.

“Khaleesi?” Came Ser Jorah’s concerned voice.

With no falter in her gaze or voice, she said, “He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s chapter five! I hope you enjoyed it. We’ve got another bit of an original scene in there; I’m undecided on it, myself, but I hope you guys like it nonetheless. I felt the scene was important to include, and I hope you agree. As always, I welcome feedback of any kind, and if you're wanting spoilers, just lemme know.


	6. Promises Kept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys tries to communicate with Drogo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s one am, I just did about four hours of writing and translating, and I’m too goddamn lazy to do a whole lot of editing. It’s about twice as long as the usual chapters are, so I’m just gonna let you guys point out any errors you find, kay? Thanks. Also I changed a few things from the show that didn’t make any logical sense to me. As always, translations are at the bottom/in the end notes. There’s a fuckton of them, btw, and they took me, like, thirty extra minutes to get sorted out because not everyone knows the lines by heart, Maggie, stfu.

_The girl is likely dead already._

Chapter Six: Promises Kept

The morning after Viserys’ death was the first time Drogo asked Daenerys to braid his hair. She had always been able to braid her own, but never had much practice on other people. Since that first time, she helped him braid it each morning. It was during these few minutes together that they had many a conversation. Each day, she became more skilled at speaking and understanding Dothraki. Each day, her relationship with her husband became more special to them both.

Signs of life filled her senses; the scent of meat cooking, the sound of a child’s laughter, a baby’s cry. The sensation of the sun’s warmth shined through the drapes of their tent, and much of her hair had fallen loose from the braids her handmaidens had woven it into the night before.

One thing yet divided Daenerys and her husband, however: Westeros. Once their son was born, he would be the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, as the only living male relative of the last ruler. Drogo, however, was unable to understand this.

Growing up, Daenerys had never understood why men were always before women in the line of succession. If her cousin, Aegon, had lived, he would have been chosen as the next in line over her, even though she was the daughter of the last king and he only the grandson. If her mother had birthed another boy after her, he would have been chosen over Daenerys, too. It all seemed entirely illogical to her, and yet it was how things were done in Westeros and Essos alike.

Even so, Daenerys was making every effort to tell her husband that their son would be a prince on both fronts: a prince of Westeros, and a khalakka, a prince of the Dothraki. Despite her efforts, however, Drogo still did not understand, it seemed.

And so as Daenerys kneeled behind Drogo and braided his hair, they talked further of their son, the Iron Throne, and what it meant to Daenerys’ family.

“The stallion who mounts the world has no need for iron chairs,” Drogo insisted.

“According to the prophecy, the stallion will ride to the ends of the earth," Daenerys countered his argument, turning his coarse hair over itself. The prophecy of the Stallion Who Mounts the World was an ancient one for the Dothraki, and one she had learned a great deal about since the Dosh Khaleen had proclaimed her son to be the man in question.

“The earth ends at the black salt sea. No horse can cross the poison water," Drogo stated this as if it were a fact. Of course, to the Dothraki, it _was_ fact. Even Ser Jorah had told her that they fear any water their horses cannot drink. Drogo had never crossed the sea, had never known anywhere but Essos.

Daenerys had never known anywhere but Essos, either, but Westeros was the home she’d been dreaming of since before she knew what it was to dream. She was born in Westeros, and she must return. 

“The earth does not end at the sea," Daenerys informed him. “There are many dirts beyond the sea. The dirt where I was born," Daenerys sometimes wondered where her husband thought her to have come from, if not from the island she had told him of. The island of her ancestors. The island of their _son’s_ ancestors. 

Drogo turned to look at her over his muscled shoulder. “Not dirts. Lands," he corrected her gently. He often corrected her Dothraki, for which she was grateful.

“Lands, yes,” she said with a smile, and even as he turned to face forward once more, she could tell he was smiling, too. Bringing the conversation back to her main concern, she said, “There are thousands of ships in the Free Cities; wooden horses that fly across the sea-”

He turned his head towards her again, just a bit this time, to interrupt her explanation of ships. “ Let’s speak no more of wooden horses or iron chairs," he turned to face forward once more, having decided he was done with the conversation.

Daenerys wasn’t done, though. She had not yet gotten Drogo to understand, and so she wasn’t done.

“It's not a chair, it's a... a..." she trailed off. There was no word for throne in Dothraki, only chairs, for their royalty rode the finest horses to signify their superiority over their people, rather than sit upon the finest throne. “Throne,” she settled on the Common Tongue word, since Drogo knew a few words in Common Tongue already.

“Throne,” her husband repeated in heavily accented Common Tongue, turning his head towards her. 

“A chair for a king to sit upon," she told him and, having finished his braid, put it over his shoulder as she stroked it, smiling at him. “or a khaleesi,” she added, for a Khaleesi ruled over the horde, too.

He leaned his face into hers briefly, just the slightest expression of affection, before rising from where he sat and crouching in front of her, one hand beside her to support his weight and the other resting gently upon her thigh.

“A king does not need a chair to sit upon,” he told her. “He only needs a horse,” and with that, he kissed her briefly, the coarse hair of his beard tickling her face. Despite her frustration at his lack of understanding, Daenerys kissed him back, leaning into him as if her lips touching his could keep him there with her. When he pulled back from her, she did not open her eyes until she heard him stand up.

* * *

Ser Jorah was a frequent confidante of hers; a reminder of her home and heritage in a land foreign to her. He knew much of her homeland, and he knew much of the Dothraki, as well. He was able to provide the insight of a Westerner who knew the Dothraki well. Daenerys was very grateful to have him with her. 

It was when the sun was high in the sky, shining directly above their heads, that Daenerys explored the Vaes Dothrak market for the first time since their arrival. She was accompanied by Ser Jorah, her handmaidens, and Rakharo for protection. 

The market itself was busy, and the vast majority of the people that surrounded her paid her no mind. So preoccupied were they with their own goings on that they seemed not to notice Daenerys or the way the sun gleamed off of her silver hair. She had not bothered to have her handmaidens redo it; she wanted to enjoy herself without worrying so much about her appearance, although she had chosen to wear a dragon claw necklace she had been gifted for her wedding.

There were a great many stalls, selling both Dothraki merchandise and foreign merchandise alike. She saw almost as many foreigners as she did Dothraki, both selling and buying, beggars and acrobats, minstrels and magicians. After the initial wonder of the market wore off, however, Daenerys’ mind kept going back to her morning conversation with Drogo.

Ser Jorah was the only person who seemed to understand her frustration with her husband. Doreah had a great deal of experience with intimacy, but very little with matters of the heart. Irri had never so much as courted anyone, as she was much too in love with Rakharo to bother with anyone else, and what’s more, she herself was Dothraki, and therefore could not understand Daenerys’ point of view. Thus, the only person Daenerys could discuss her frustrations with was Ser Jorah.

“Can’t you help me make him understand?” Daenerys asked of Ser Jorah as he walked beside her, their group weaving through the throngs of people. Perhaps there was some way Ser Jorah could articulate it in a way that she could not. He did, after all, have a firmer grasp on the Dothraki language than she.

“The Dothraki do things in their own time, for their own reasons,” the knight explained. Daenerys sighed. It seemed that she could not get any further. “Have patience, Khaleesi. We will go home, I promise you,” he said, sensing her frustration. 

“My brother… was a fool, I know, but he was the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms,” she reminded Ser Jorah. She did not mourn Viserys’ death. Had he lived, he would never have seen Westeros again. Of that, she was positive.

Ser Jorah chuckled at her statement, and Daenerys had difficulty not taking offense. “Have I said something funny, ser?”

“Forgive me, Khaleesi, but your ancestor Aegon the Conqueror didn’t seize six of the kingdoms because they were his right. He had no right to them. He seized them because he could,” he told her. Daenerys supposed that that was true. Aegon had no heritage on the Westerosi mainland, no connections to anything or anyone on the continent; he had simply seen something he wanted, and decided he would have it.

“And because he had dragons?”

“Ah, well,” Ser Jorah sighed, “having a few dragons makes things easier,” he looked around them, at the squeaking birds, Dothraki women carrying fruits and vegetables, magisters in their velvet robes and woven hats. 

“You don’t believe it,” Daenerys said in surprise. She had always assumed that it was a commonly accepted fact that dragons had played an essential role of Aegon’s conquest of Westeros. Her brother had told her many times that the skulls of the Targaryen dragons were kept in the Throne room, and it hadn’t even been twenty years since then. Surely there must be a great many people alive who could attest to the stories Daenerys been told all her life.

“Have you ever seen a dragon, Khaleesi?” He asked of her, brushing off her shock. “I believe what my eyes and ears report. As for the rest, it was three hundred years ago. Who knows what really happened?” He came to a stop then, his eyes searching the crowds, the canopy of trees beyond and above them. “Now if you’ll pardon me, I’ll seek out the merchant captain, see if he has any letters for me.”

Ser Jorah often expressed concern about letters he may have received, she had learned. She wanted to hear more of his thoughts on the Conquest, however. “Well, I’ll come with you,” she offered.

“No no, don’t trouble yourself,” he said kindly. “Enjoy the market. I’ll rejoin you soon enough,” as he walked away, Daenerys looked after him. Whatever could he be waiting for? News of his family, perhaps? His wife? She pushed the thoughts from her mind. Ser Jorah’s business was his own, and if he wanted to keep it private, he was well within his rights to do so.

* * *

Daenerys had been offered a flower from a merchant who had been selling them. He recognized her as the wife of Khal Drogo, and although Daenerys suspected he simply wanted to curry favor with her husband, she was flattered nonetheless. When her handmaidens admired the gift, she’d insisted upon buying a flower for each of them, as well. 

The three women were carrying their flowers with Rakharo in tow when one of the merchants called out to Daenerys. She had already noticed his stall, for he had been advertising his wares aloud. 

When he saw her approach his stall, he must have recognized her. Perhaps more people had seen her eat the stallion’s heart than she had originally thought. But then, this man was not dressed like a Dothraki. 

“A taste for the Khaleesi?” The wine merchant offered in flawless Dothraki, pointing towards her as she stepped closer. “I have a sweet red from Dorne, my lady. One taste and you’ll name your first child after me," he promised. 

“My son already has his name, but I’ll try your summer wine," she told him with a smile. Seeing the liberal amount he had in the cup he offered her, she told him, “Just a taste.”

He must have heard the accent she knew she had when she spoke Dothraki, for his eyes widened and he switched to the Common Tongue. “My lady, you are from Westeros,” he said, pointing a finger at her again.

Daenerys opened her mouth to respond, but Doreah did it for her: “You have the honor of addressing Daenerys of the House Targaryen, Khaleesi of the Riding Men and Princess of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Princess,” the wine merchant honored her with a bow. 

“Rise,” she told him with another smile. “I’d still like to taste that wine.”

“That?” He stared at the contents of the cup briefly before tossing it out. “Dornish swill. Not worthy of a princess. I have a dry red from the Arbor. Nectar of the gods,” he closed his eyes for a moment, lifting his hands as if he himself were tasting the wine he spoke of. “Let me give you a cask. A- a gift!” he told her, rushing to his stock.

“You honor me, ser,” Daenerys was touched that someone’s opinion of her had changed for the better after learning who she was, that she was more than just the wife of a Khal. 

“The honor- the honor is all mine,” he was straining to carry the cask over to her.

As the wine merchant approached her, Rakharo stepped forward, waving his hand and vocalizing to indicate that the wine should only be carried by him.

“You know there are many in your homeland that pray for your return, Princess,” the wine merchant told her kindly with another bow.

Daenerys returned the serious expression upon his face. “I hope to repay your kindness someday,” she told him.

“Rakharo,” came Ser Jorah’s voice as he pushed tree branches aside to make his way towards them.

At Rakharo’s questioning “huh?” the wine merchant slowly rose from his bow.

“ Rakharo, put down that cask," he said in Dothraki, approaching them. 

“Is something wrong?” Daenerys questioned, a bit startled at his sudden arrival and request.

“I have a thirst. Open it,” he instructed as Rakharo handed the cask back to the wine merchant.

“The wine is for the Khaleesi. It’s not for the likes of you,” his words came quickly, rushed. 

“Open it,” Ser Jorah said again. The wine merchant looked from Ser Jorah’s face to Daenerys’ suspicious and unyielding eyes, then back to Ser Jorah once more before finally shrugging slightly and putting the cask atop another one in his stock. As he opened it, she and Ser Jorah shared a look, and she silently gave her permission to do what he would. “Pour,” he commanded. 

The wine merchant took several seconds to process Ser Jorah’s order. “It would be a crime to drink a wine this rich without at least giving it time to breathe,” he insisted. The more he fought it, the more suspicious Daenerys became. 

“Do as he says,” she told him, noting the nervous look in his eyes, on his face.

“As the Princess commands,” he said this softly, and with each syllable that emerged from his mouth, Daenerys became more and more sure that there was something wrong, that he was trying to avoid having anyone drink this wine in his presence.

When he began to pour the wine into a cup, Daenerys locked eyes with Ser Jorah again, who then fixed Rakharo with a look, warning him that he would need to act if there was trouble. 

The wine merchant gave the cup to Ser Jorah, who lifted it to his nose. “Sweet, isn’t it?” The merchant asked of Ser Jorah, who smiled briefly. “Can you smell the fruit, ser? Taste it, my lord. Tell me that that is not the finest wine that has ever touched your tongue,” as he spoke, his eyes darted back and forth between the wine and Ser Jorah, far more rapidly than a person would normally shift their gaze.

Ser Jorah seemed as if he were going to take a sip, but he changed his mind. “You first,” he told the wine merchant, holding it out towards him. At his words, Daenerys turned towards the wine merchant to gauge his reaction.

“Me? I’m afraid I am not worthy of the vintage. Besides, it is a poor wine merchant who would drink up his own wares,” he said with a shake of his head and a laugh.

“You _will_ drink,” Daenerys commanded him. His smile faltered, but only just, and she clenched her hand around the flower she held, the stiff leaves prickling her palms. 

Ser Jorah held out the cup to him, and he took it willingly. First he nodded to Ser Jorah, and then to Daenerys with a lift of the cup. He did not stop smiling until he allowed the cup to fall to the carpet, red seeping into the fabric like spilled blood.

Suddenly, there was chaos, and everything happened so fast that Daenerys could barely register it all. The bustling noise of the market seemed to disappear in an instant, and the wine merchant grabbed the cask with far less effort than he had originally required to lift it, thrusting it into Rakharo’s hands and running away from them as fast as his legs could manage. In the same second he had grabbed the cask, Ser Jorah had grabbed Daenerys’ arms and pulled her as far from the fleeing man as possible. 

“Khaleesi!” One of her handmaidens shouted in a terrified voice, and she wasn’t quite sure who, but then the same woman shouted, “stop him!”, and Rakharo had already dropped the cask and was following closely behind the wine merchant. 

Daenerys herself had lost sight of him as he rushed through the crowd, clearly trying to lose Rakharo. She heard shouts of surprise and Rakharo’s voice call out a few times, and then there was a thud, and when Ser Jorah finally guided her over -it felt like eons, though it was probably less than a minute- telling her to come, she was shaken, but still caught sight of the wine merchant being held down by Dothraki who must have heard what was going on. She did not look back at them, but she heard someone spit, and she assumed it was the wine merchant fighting back against the men who held him.

It took several hours for Daenerys’ handmaidens to help calm her, each of them holding one of her shaking hands. They had not left her side since the incident, and neither had Ser Jorah. Only Rakharo had left, and that was because he was sent to get Drogo. Drogo could comfort Daenerys better than anyone else. It took her awhile to fully comprehend what had happened. Eventually, she came to realize that Ser Jorah had probably saved her life. If not for his foresight, she would be dead, and so would her son.

* * *

Daenerys circled the feasting tent, where the assassin had been sent to await for his sentence and she had been sent to wait for Drogo.

The assassin had been tied to one of the intricately carved columns, and he was barely conscious. His face was bloodied and one of the ropes that kept him in place was around his neck. She had finally sent her handmaidens away so that they could calm themselves down and rest, but Ser Jorah remained. He seemed reluctant to stray too far from her, even then, and followed closely behind her as she walked over the crinkling dried grass.

“What will they do to him?” She asked, not turning to face either man.

“When the khalasar rides, he’ll be leashed to a saddle and forced to run behind the horses for as long as he can,” Ser Jorah told her as they came to a stop directly across from the condemned man.

“And when he falls?” Ser Jorah looked at her, then back at the assassin.

“I saw a man last nine miles once,” Daenerys wondered what the man who had lasted nine miles had done to deserve such a fate. Even for a man who attempted to kill her, this was a difficult thing for her to hear. She knew he had to die, but to suffer such a fate… But then, the Dothraki were a brutal sort of people, and brutal punishments were likely the only sort they had.

Daenerys blinked rapidly and pushed the thought from her mind. “King Robert _still_ wants me dead,” she observed.

“This poisoner was the first. He won’t be the last,” Ser Jorah informed her. He had known King Robert, and so Daenerys took his words for truth.

“I thought he’d leave me alone, now that my brother is gone,” she told him. She had truly believed that; all her life, she had believed that the only reason King Robert had tried to kill her was that her brother was with her. Without him, she had hoped -prayed,even- that that would be the end of it. Assassins had been sent after her for longer than she could remember, and she was so, _so_ tired of running from them.

“He will _never_ leave you alone,” her friend said, looking down at her as she gazed at the man who had tried to put an end to her. “If you ride to darkest Assai, his assassins will follow you. If you sailed all the way to the Basilisk Isles, his spies would tell him. He will _never_ abandon the hunt,” a hunt, indeed. Was that was she was to this man who had never known her? He had only known her father, and yet- he wanted her dead. Dead not in the sense one person wants someone they loathe dead, but in the sense that one person wants an animal they hunt for sport dead. She was a deer to him, a boar, a bear.

“You’re a Targaryen,” Ser Jorah continued. “The last Targaryen. Your son will have Targaryen blood with forty thousand riders behind him,” at the reminder of her son, she put her hand on her stomach to feel where he slept inside her.

The very idea of this man, this assassin, taking her child’s life as well as her own, all for this King Robert… A fury emerged from Daenerys, and she felt it ignite her veins, her skin. “He will not have my son,” she said firmly, more to herself than anyone else.

“He will not have you, either, Khaleesi,” Ser Jorah looked at her as he said this, but Daenerys did not look away from the assassin.

Rakharo entered then, holding a lit torch. Other riders followed him, each holding torches of their own. When Drogo entered the tent, Daenerys’ breath caught in her throat. She could have died and never seen him again.

He looked at her reverently for a long moment, and then turned to the man who had tried to kill her, slowly stepping towards him. The smaller man began to shake with quiet sobs, and Drogo held his hand out for a torch, which Rakharo handed him. Drogo jerked the torch past the sobbing man’s face and then thrust it into the fire pit as he strode towards her.

“Moon of my life," he greeted her, cradling her face in his hands. “Are you hurt?" Daenerys put one hand on the rough fabric at his waist, reaching up with the other to hold one of his before shaking her head slightly. Sighing in relief, Drogo pressed a long kiss to her forehead. Daenerys looked up at him lovingly, thrilled to see him after such an ordeal. 

“Jorah the Andal," Drogo turned his gaze to Ser Jorah, approaching him. “I heard what you did. Choose any horse you wish. It is yours,” her husband put his hand on Ser Jorah’s shoulder in appreciation. “I make this gift to you.”

He moved back to Daenerys, and although he didn’t meet her loving gaze, he did lower place his hands gently upon her stomach. “And to my son, the stallion who will mount the world," he lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I will also pledge a gift,” he took her small hands in his rough ones briefly before releasing them, and she held her hands out for him for just a moment longer.

Beginning to circle the fire he had lit, he went on. “I will give him the iron chair that his mother’s father sat upon. I will give him Seven Kingdoms,” he said to his riders and all those present, and then came to stand before Daenerys once more. “I, Drogo, will do this," he promised.

“I will take my Khalasar west to where the world ends,” he walked away from her again, circling the fire pit. "And ride wooden horses across the black salt water as no Khal has done before," he raised his voice as he spoke, gesticulating with his arms to punctate his words, and his men cheered their approval.

He approached the assassin, putting his own face inches before the smaller man’s. “I will kill the men in their iron suits,” he turned from the condemned man and back towards the center of the tent. “and tear down their stone houses" as he spoke, Daenerys looked on with pride, the heat from the fire warming her skin just as his words warmed her soul.

"I will rape their women, take their children as slaves, and bring their broken gods back to Vaes Dothrak,” with each statement, the cheering grew louder, the men shouting their agreement. “This, I vow,” he swore, his back to her. “I, Drogo, son of Bharbo.”

“I swear before the Mother of Mountains,” her husband continued, gesticulating as he shouted out his promises to her, to their child. “As the stars look down in witness!” He looked directly into her eyes before speaking to his khalasar once more. “As the stars look down in witness! As the stars look down in witness!” He met her eyes again as his men cheered around him. Daenerys raised her chin with pride, tears threatening to fall from her eyes.

Drogo wasted no time in making an effort to keep his promise. They left Vaes Dothrak the following morning. Her husband rode at the front of the horde, as he always did, and she and Ser Jorah rode behind him. The assassin was tied to her horse (so that she could see him die herself, Drogo had told her). She found that he smelled even worse than the other men who had not washed themselves in several days, for the would-be wine merchant was covered in dirt and his own blood and sweat, stumbling to keep up with her horse. Even so, Daenerys was pleased to be back atop the mare that Drogo had gifted her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lemme know your thoughts, if it sucks be nice about it, kthxbye


	7. Touches of Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mirri Maz Duur enters the scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure exactly how much time has gone by since when we first started, but I’m gonna say it’s been about seven to eight months. So, assuming Dany got pregnant on or shortly after her wedding night, she’s about that far along, which is really fucking uncomfortable, or so I’ve been told. I dunno a whole lot about pregnancy and what that feels like physically, so I’m just guessing here and going off what people have told me.

_I’m the girl you’ve been thinking about, the one thing you can’t live without. I’m the girl you’ve been waiting for; I’ll have you down on your knees, I’ll have you begging for me._ \- In This Moment, Whore

Chapter Seven: Touches of Magic

Drogo had insisted that Daenerys refrain from being present at the raid. He agreed to allowing her to come see him after it was over, however, and had sent Ser Jorah to retrieve her from where she waited outside of the village.

The sun hid behind clouds that day, declining to comfort her with the warmth of its rays, and as she gazed up at the sky, she wondered about the people who lived in the village her husband was currently raiding. He had agreed not to take any woman but her, of course, but what of the other riders who had made no such promises? Surely, there must be a reason for the screaming she heard, the smoke she saw.

It was becoming more and more difficult for Daenerys to walk and to ride, and she wondered how other Dothraki women managed to ride their horses until the moment they gave birth. As it stood, however, Daenerys preferred to be seated in a comfortable chair as frequently as possible, as opposed to standing upright or sitting atop her horse.

When Ser Jorah walked through the grass to greet her, he found her sitting on a rock beside her handmaidens, with Rakharo off to the side for their protection. The rock wasn’t the best chair in the world, but it was significantly better than sitting in the dirt.

When he came to a stop before the three women, Daenerys turned her gaze to him. “Is it over?” She questioned.

“Yes, Khaleesi. The raid is over, more or less,” although she was skeptical of his response, she allowed Doreah and Irri to help her to her feet. Standing had become so difficult as of late, and her stomach seemed to get in the way of the slightest movement. She had needed new clothes made for her, having recently taken to wearing a top fashioned with the appearance of dragon scales, in honor of her heritage.

As Drogo led her into the village, the screaming became louder. The stench of burning corpses filled her nose. She saw a statue being brought down with rope, men, women, and children screaming and crying, trying to run away from the Dothraki raiders. She saw warriors going through the clothes of dead villagers, carrying sobbing women over their shoulders, beating those who had already fallen to the ground.

Looking at the corpses that lined the streets, listening to the cries of women and children, Daenerys found it difficult to understand the necessity of the raid. What good could such brutality possibly do? How could it bring her son any closer to the Iron Throne?

“What did they do?” she asked, horrified by the sight before her.

“Lamb men make good slaves," came Rakharo’s response “Khal Drogo will make a gift of them to the slavers, and the slavers will give us gold, and silk, and steel," he explained in Dothraki.

“I thought the Dothraki didn’t believe in money,” Daenerys said to Ser Jorah in the Common Tongue. If they didn’t believe in money, if they relied only on trading, then what use had they for gold?

“Gold to hire ships, princess,” Ser Jorah told her. “Ships to sail to Westeros.” As they walked through the desecrated village, Daenerys inhaled the smoke from the burning buildings, saw children tied to wooden posts. She met the eyes of one boy, no older than ten, and she saw both fear and hatred in his eyes. Fear, hatred, and grief. 

Daenerys stopped walking when she reached the loudest source of the screaming. A group of women, at least a dozen of them, were fighting back against Dothraki riders who had trapped most of them in a kind of cage. Some were out of the cage, being thrown about by their hair or pulled along by the wrist. She saw these terrified, suffering women, and images flashed behind her eyelids with each blink; images of the first weeks of her marriage. She would not see it any longer.

“Jorah, make them stop,” she ordered, refusing to take her eyes off of what was happening to these women, not until it was no longer happening.

“Khaleesi?” Ser Jorah questioned, clearly surprised at her command.

“You heard me,” she told him, unwavering.

“These men have shed blood for the Khal. Now their claim their rewards,” her friend told her. Perhaps they would choose to claim such rewards, but it was not a reward they would be permitted henceforth. Not while she still had breath left in her lungs.

“She is a lamb girl, Khaleesi. The riders do her honor," Rakharo said in reference to a particular woman who was putting up quite a fight against her attacker. Honor, indeed. It was no honor to be raped. “If her wailing offends the Khaleesi, I will bring you her tongue," he offered.

Daenerys did not acknowledge Rakharo’s words. The so-called honor of being raped was not something she would deign with a response. The sight of this woman cowering before a Dothraki rider who would take her beside the corpses of those she must have loved… She could not abide it.

“Princess,” Ser Jorah came to stand by her side as he addressed her. “You have a gentle heart, but this is how it’s always been.”

“I do not have a gentle heart, ser,” she informed him, for refusing to allow something so horrible to happen before one’s eyes did not mean one was soft and meek. To the Dothraki who surrounded her, she said, “Do as I command or Khal Drogo will know the reason why.”

Rakharo and the others did not object further, but went to stop the riders who sought to attack the village women. Daenerys catch the words between Rakharo and the other rider, but it was clear that the man in question was displeased with the interruption.

Ser Jorah approached the woman as she knelt against the corpses of her fellow villagers. “Come,” he told her with an outstretched hand. He helped the shaking woman to her feet and wrapped a blanket around her. “What do you want done with them?” He asked Daenerys, leading the woman towards her. Daenerys saw that the woman was older than she had originally expected; much older than she was, with more than one streak of grey in her wild hair.

“Bring her to me,” she commanded. “And those women there,” she pointed at the many who had been caged.

“You cannot claim them all, princess,” Ser Jorah warned. But he was wrong. She was Khaleesi.

“I can, and I will,” she promised.

* * *

Walking through the burning village, smoke rising into the sky, Daenerys felt surer of her choice to save the village women with each step. She could tell that some were still terrified they would be brutalized while others had not yet processed what had already been done to them. Daenerys knew their fear, had experienced it herself. She knew, too, that coming to terms with such horrors was no easy task. She smiled reassuringly at them, hoping to dissuade some of their concerns, if even the tiniest amount.

She’d gotten quite used to ignoring stares. Even so, walking with a dozen village women behind her, it drew some strange looks from the Dothraki. Drogo sat at the altar of the village’s deity, a sign of his triumph over them. She walked under what must have been a sacred tree to reach him, strips of cloth hanging from its branches, tied around its trunk. Daenerys wondered why it had not been desecrated as well. The warrior who had had his attempt at rape thwarted by Rakharo -Mago, his name was- argued with her husband.

As before, she was too far from the two men to be able to hear them, but she could tell that Mago was furious. 

As she neared Drogo and his companions, he addressed her. “Moon of my life," he greeted her, as he always did. “Mago says you have taken his spoils, a daughter of the lamb who was his to mount," she came to a stop before him, the awning above them blocking the what little sunlight still shone through the clouds. He held his arakh, blade in the dirt, and crossed one arm above the other. “Tell me the truth of this."

“Mago speaks the truth, my sun and stars,” she told him, affection in her words and tone, even with the topic at hand. “I have claimed many daughters this day so that they cannot be mounted," Daenerys looked briefly at Mago with that, then back to her husband.

While Drogo didn’t seem angry, he didn’t agree with her either. “This is the way of war," he told her. “These women are slaves now to do with as we please,” Slaves, yes. Women were slaves to most men, slaves to the Dothraki. If they, unranked Dothraki warriors, could do as they pleased, could she, a Khaleesi, not do the same?

“It pleases me to keep them safe. If your riders would mount them, let them take them for wives," she suggested. If the riders insisted upon taking the women, they should give them the slightest bit of honor. Perhaps they could someday have what she and Drogo had. Many a marriage had started as theirs had, after all.

Her husband said nothing, as did Mago. Instead, a bloodcider of Drogo’s, Qotho, raised his objections. “Does the horse mate with the lamb?” He questioned, looking at his Khal accusatorially. 

When Daenerys realized that Qotho was referring to _her_ as a lamb, she took great offense. She was no lamb, nor was she a lion. “The dragon feeds on horse and lamb alike." She didn’t raise her voice. She barely glanced at Qotho, barely acknowledged his existence.

She refused to acknowledge Mago, either, until he addressed her directly. “You are a foreigner. You do not command me," he turned his body away from her in dismissal.

“I am Khaleesi,”(7r) she reminded him. “I do command you.” He would do well not to forget her station. He would do well, too, not to forget where he stood.

Chuckling, Drogo said, “See how fierce she grows?” He looked first at Mago, then at the men surrounding him. “That is my son inside her, the stallion that will mount the world, filling her with his fire." Daenerys wondered if that was indeed the truth; if her newfound courage came from Rhaego, or if any of the fire her husband spoke of belonged to her, too.

He gazed at her, though, and she found herself pleased with his acknowledgement. “I will hear no more," he continued. “Mago, find somewhere else to stick your cock."  


The last word Drogo spoke barely left his mouth before Mago spat at his feet, extending his arakh towards her husband. “A Khal who takes orders from a foreign whore is no Khal."

At the insult to Daenerys’ character, Ser Jorah moved from his place beside her to before her, guiding her further from the potential threat. Qotho stepped in front of Drogo, prepared to defend his Khal.

“Be still,” Drogo told his bloodrider, his voice calm and even. “Don't move,” hearing the orders, Qotho backed off Mago, stepping aside. Khal Drogo had not earned his position by allowing other men to fight for him when he was insulted or threatened. Although his expression had not changed, Daenerys could feel the fury radiating off of him, even as far from him as she was, even with Ser Jorah shielding her. 

“I will not have your body burned. I will not give you that honor," he said, rising to his feet. To not burn Mago’s body, Drogo would prevent him from joining his ancestors in the Night Lands. There was no greater dishonor for a Dothraki.

In an attempt to prevent Drogo from stepping closer, Mago allowed his arakh to press into the larger man’s chest. He did not flinch, only flexed his muscles with a grunt, advancing on the rider. “The beetles will feed on your eyes. The worms will crawl through your lungs," finally, his expression began to change, and his fury became more evident.

Mago pulled his arakh back, swinging it over his head and then at Drogo in an attempt to behead him. Mago did this twice, failing both times and missing a third strike from above his head, for her husband was too quick for the swing of the blade. He turned towards the crowd, his back to his opponent, for he was that unconcerned about the younger man’s skills. He met Daenerys’ eyes briefly, and she was sure he could sense her concern for him, but it did not deflate his confidence. 

Unsheathing two knives from each side of his belt, he extending his arms, a knife in each hand. “The rain will fall on your rotting skin," he turned back towards Mago, who seemed to have gained enough sense to appear afraid. Drogo dropped the knives, proving he would not use weapons for this kill. “Until nothing is left but your bones!" He raised his voice then, for the first time that day.

Mago continued to swipe at the man he had once sworn to follow, but he weaved out of the blade’s way with ease. “First you have to kill me!" Mago shouted, his arakh coming to rest upon Drogo’s chest. 

Watching this, Daenerys heard a gasp that may have been her own. She worried for her husband’s safety; Mago may have a far shorter braid than Drogo, barely a braid at all, but even so, he must have earned a place in the khalasar somehow. She reached out for him, for her sun and stars, to say something, to stop this, but Ser Jorah, sensing her fear, grasped her arm gently.

Her worries proved needless, however, when Drogo grasped the arakh’s handle, said, “I already have," and slit Mago’s throat in a single movement. He grasped his throat with both hands, and Daenerys couldn’t see exactly what Drogo did, but when Mago fell to the ground the next moment, her husband was holding up the man’s tongue. 

Without glancing at his opponent’s corpse, he turned and strode over to the altar once more, topping the tongue on a pile of bodies as he walked before sitting down as if nothing of note had taken place at all.

Daenerys rushed over to her husband, placing her hands on his thighs and kneeling before him, her knees resting in the dirt. He reeked of blood, and the stench of the corpses nearby was overpowering, but she ignored it.

“My sun and stars is wounded," she gasped out.

He glanced at the wound, then at her. “A scratch, moon of my life," he reached out with one hand to stroke her face lightly.

Even so, Daenerys whipped her head around. “Where are the healers?" She demanded.

The crowd looked on, some with concern, and Drogo waved them off, brushing his hand over his chest, saying, “this is the bite of a fly."

The woman Daenerys had ordered be saved from Mago stepped forward, blanket still clutched around her shoulders. “I can help the great rider with his cut,” she said, stopping her movement when a rider next to her put his arakh in her path, a gasp halting her speech mid-sentence before she continued.

“The Khal needs no help from slaves who lie with sheep ,” Qotho said, his own low but outstretched in her direction nonetheless.

Daenerys fixed him with a glare. “She is mine. Let her speak," she told him fiercely.

Switching to the Common Tongue, the woman spoke again. “Thank you, silver lady,” she smiled at Daenerys before approaching slowly, only stopping when Qotho held out his arakh once more.

“Who are you?” Daenerys asked her.

“I am named Mirri Maz Duur. I was the godswife of this temple,” she said, her eyes darting from Daenerys, still at Drogo’s feet, and Qotho’s blade before he lowered it.

“Witch," Qotho cut her off with a spit, but did not raise his arakh again.

“My mother was godswife here before me,” the woman -Mirri Maz Duur- continued. “She taught me how to make healing smokes and ointments. All men are one flock, so my people believe,” Qotho turned to Drogo, gauging his reaction. “The Great Shepherd sent me to earth to heal his-“ 

Qotho cut her off again, this time with a slap before he spoke. “Too many words. A witch's words poison the ears," he warned.

“Lamb or lion, his wound must be washed and sewn or it will fester,” she told Daenerys, not acknowledging Qotho.

When she turned back towards her husband, he looked down at her. “Let her clean your wound, my sun and stars” she implored of him. “It makes me hurt to see you bleed."

He raised his gaze from Daenerys to where she knew Mirri Maz Duur stood. He leaned back and sighed softly, having made a decision. For the first time since the fight had ended, Daenerys rose to her feet and stepped away, allowing the healer to examine Drogo’s wound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, one scene for a whole chapter! Still managed to get it to a pretty decent length, though, I think (zing!), so that’s a plus, right? Anyway, lemme know if you’ve got any thoughts.


	8. Promises Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait you guys. We’re just gonna switch to English for the whole thing because those translations are a pain in the ass.

_I’m misused, misconstrued, I don’t need to be saved. Miss slighted, I don’t mind it; I’m stuck in the rain. And I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know what I’m into, and I don’t know what I’ve done to me. And as I watch you disappear into the ground, my one mistake was that I couldn’t let you down. So I’ll waste my time and I’ll burn my mind._ \- The Pretty Reckless, Miss Nothing

Chapter Eight: Promises Broken

_Flames. There were flames surrounding her. Everywhere she looked, every which way she turned, there was fire. There was ash at her feet, between her toes, and with every breath she took, she inhaled nothing but smoke. She felt a fury she could not place, an agony she could not name. Drogo stood before her, as if he himself were a lick of fire, his visage flickering as the flames did. His back was to her, and when he turned, he held in his arms a child. Their child, as she had always imagined him, the very image of his father._

_Daenerys smiled at them, but Drogo said nothing to her, merely turned from her once more and walked away. She heard the cries of their son over the flames, and she reached out to them both, to her husband and child, before a searing pain shot down from her womb to her pelvis, and she knew, though she wasn’t sure how, but she knew that the pain she felt was a burning one. When she reached down and felt between her thighs, she felt a dampness there and her hand was bloody upon examination. The second she recognized the blood for what it was, the flames shot higher somehow, their color changing to match her blood._

When Daenerys woke, she took no comfort in Drogo next to her, for he was tossing and turning, and he was covered in more sweat than she had ever seen on him. She found sleep, but it was fitful and horrible; she knew she was asleep, and yet she was aware of all around her. 

It was too cold.

* * *

There were clouds in the sky, but they did not shield the horde from the sun’s harsh rays. Canteens were running low by midday, and the dust the horses kicked up with their hooves made her cough and sneeze.

None of these things, though, caused Daenerys more concern than Drogo. He rode at the head of the horde, as he always did, only he was hunched over in the saddle, his head bowed. She had been unable to coax a response out of him all day; he seemed not to hear her speak.

“My lord,” Daenerys called out to him. When he didn’t respond, she tried again. “My son and stars.” Still, he said nothing and his posture did not change. “Drogo,” she said, almost pleading.

Only a moment after she said his name, he fell from his horse, the fall slow, more of a slide than anything else. Daenerys dismounted before the dust had even settled around him, not bothering to call for her handmaidens for assistance as she usually did, clutching her stomach as she allowed her feet to fall to the ground. She was already out of breath before she sprinted over towards him. When she touched his skin, it was as if there was fire beneath it, living inside his flesh.

“My horse,” his eyes were open, but they were unfocused, and he didn’t seem to know Daenerys was kneeling beside him at all. “My… horse,” he said again, turning his head restlessly from side to side. The fall itself did not appear to have caused him injury, but it was clear he was not himself.

Cohollo, one of Drogo’s bloodriders, had dismounted only moments after Daenerys had, rushing over to clasp his Khal’s hand.

“Blood of my blood,” Cohollo said, trying to stir Drogo himself.

“No, I must ride,” he was trying to get up, even then, trying to force his muscles to do his bidding so that he could remount his horse.

The other bloodriders who were still mounted looked on. “He fell from his horse,” came Qotho’s voice, and she whipped around to look at him fiercely. He ignored her expression, though, saying, “a Khal who cannot ride is no Khal .”

This was true for the Dothraki, Daenerys knew. The crowd that had gathered around them would see a weakened man, and a weakened man was unfit to be Khal. In an attempt to placate them, to dissuade these thoughts amongst the horde, she said, “He’s tired, that’s all. He needs to rest.”

“We’ve ridden far enough today. We’ll camp here,” she told Drogo’s bloodriders.

“This is no place to camp,” Qotho told her. “A woman does not give us orders. Not even a Khaleesi.” Deciding to fight that battle once Drogo was back on his feet, she ignored his words.

“We’ll camp here,” She told them. “Tell them Khal Drogo commanded it,” although Daenerys was afraid for her husband, she kept her voice firm, refusing to allow her weakness to be seen.

“You do not command me, Khaleesi,” Qotho responded. This infuriated her, for she _did_ command him as Khaleesi, but still, she ignored his words. 

“Find Mirri Maz Duur. Bring her to me,” she demanded, turning back to Drogo.

“The witch? I’ll bring you back her head, Khaleesi.”

This defiance was enough for her. He _would_ do as she bid him. “Bring her to me unharmed or Khal Drogo will hear why you defied me,” she said each word slowly, enunciating carefully, as if she were speaking to a child. Qotho said nothing more, only rode off in silence.

Daenerys knew that he would return with Mirri Maz Duur.

* * *

Daenerys didn’t really believe the Gods. Viserys brother had spoken of them when he told her tales of their family history. The Gods of Valyria, for whom the Targaryen dragons had been named, and the Faith of the Seven that her ancestors had converted to upon arriving in Westeros. 

She had encountered many religions throughout her life, as well; the Pattern, Trios, the Black Goat, the Pale Child, the Weeping Lady of Lys, Pantera, the Silent God, Aquan the Red Bull, Semosh and Selloso, the Many-Faced God, R’hllor… Daenerys had heard speeches from priests and priestesses alike, all with promises, all with fervency. Viserys had insisted that he was given the divine right to rule by the Gods themselves. He’d prayed to the Seven for his Throne. Nothing came of it. Daenerys had decided long agothat such things -relying on Gods to fulfill one’s wishes- would not get one very far.She figured that if there were Gods, they wouldn’t much care who ruled what and when. 

Her husband believed wholeheartedly in the Great Stallion, the God of the Dothraki. She didn’t know if he was right, but if the Great Stallion existed and was watching, she hoped he would listen to her.

They set up camp there on the hilltop, the fires burning in each tent, smoke rising into the afternoon sky. Setting up camp was more unpleasant for the horde than usual, as the sun had not yet fallen beneath the horizon, and there was no cool night air to make the task easier.

Many of the Dothraki had already heard of Khal Drogo’s fall from his horse, but many had not. He was just a bit ill, she’d had Ser Jorah told them. He’d be himself again in the morning. Daenerys did everything she could to convince herself of that very thing.

He’s just a bit ill. 

He’ll be himself again in the morning.

He’s just a bit ill.

He’ll be himself again in the morning.

He’s just a bit ill. _Just a bit ill._

Maybe if she repeated it enough times, it would come true. They could get through anything. _He_ could get through anything, overcome anything. Even so, though, Daenerys sat beside him, unresponsive as he was, holding his hand and praying. She prayed to the Great Stallion, the Seven Gods, R’hllor the fire God- any and all she could think of, just in case one of them was right. Just in case one of them could make him strong and whole once more. 

Drogo spoke Dothraki words she didn’t know as she stroked his cheek, his eyes staring blankly above him, unseeing. She herself had not moved since first sitting down beside him. She feared that if she looked away, even for a moment, he would slip away from her, and she would never hear the sound of his voice again. 

Irri and Doreah had not left her; they stood behind Daenerys silently, awaiting to be asked for anything. Perhaps they were hoping to be asked for something, to be given something to do. Daenerys couldn’t find it within herself to give the girls much thought, however.

Mirri Maz Duur had put more herbs on the wound he’d received from Mago, but it hadn’t seemed to help. It was still red and angry, and he had a higher fever than she had ever seen, his sweat soaking through his clothes and onto the furs upon which he lay.

She didn’t look up when she heard Ser Jorah’s voice. “Khaleesi,” he greeted, and swiftly wiped a tear from her cheek.

“Come,” she told him, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She was a Khaleesi, a queen, and she must not falter, must not waver. She needed to be strong. For Drogo. For their son.

“He’s very strong,” she told the knight, looking up at him. “No one understands how strong he is.” Ser Jorah approached, and Daenerys looked back down at her husband, who murmured something in Dothraki.

When Ser Jorah unsheathed a knife, she looked up at him, worried for half a second. But no, Ser Jorah was loyal to Drogo, and to her. He wedged the knife under the herbs, using it to lift them off of Drogo’s hot skin and look at the wound. It had festered, she knew, but she still gasped and looked away, focusing on her husband’s face.

Ser Jorah himself didn’t bother to look too closely at the wound, for he only needed a moment’s glance before he looked up at her and said, “he will die tonight, Khaleesi.”

Daenerys didn’t look away from Drogo’s face. “He can’t,” she nearly gasped out. “He can’t,” she said again, stronger this time. “I won’t let him.”

Her hand was resting on his chest, and she half thought his very skin might burn away, it was so hot.

“Even a queen doesn’t have that power,” Ser Jorah told her, standing and walking towards the tent’s opening. “We must go quickly,” he turned to face her again, but she was still not looking at him. “I’ve heard there’s a good port in Asshai-“

“I won’t leave him,” Daenerys interjected, raising her eyes to meet the knight’s. She would not leave her husband. She had sworn never to leave him, and he… He had sworn never to leave her, either. He couldn’t die. He simply couldn’t.

“He’s already gone, Khaleesi,” the knight told her gently. 

When Drogo mumbled out more Dothraki, Daenerys looked down at his face again. “Even if…” she fought back a sob, forced her voice to level. “Even if he dies, why would I run?” She demanded. “I am Khaleesi and my- my son will be Khal after Drogo,” she nearly shouted it, as if someone would hear her and make it so.

“This isn’t Westeros where men honor blood. Here, they only honor strength,” Ser Jorah informed her. “There will be fighting after Drogo dies.” She looked down at the last word. _Dies_. He seemed invincible to her, and she still could not wrap her mind around the concept of his death. 

“Whoever wins that fight will be the new Khal,” Ser Jorah continued. “He won’t want any rivals. Your boy will be plucked from your breast and given to the dogs.”

Even so, Drogo was not yet dead. There was every chance he could pull through, was there not? She would not break her promise to him. She could not. “I won’t leave him,” she reiterated. 

Ser Jorah was saved from a response by Mirri Maz Duur coming into the tent with a brief pause and nod of her head in acknowledgement of Daenerys. Qotho followed her inside, stopping to stand beside Ser Jorah, the other bloodriders following close behind.

Mirri Maz Duur kneeled beside Drogo, examining the wound. “The wound has festered,” she said.

“You did this, witch,” Qotho said in harsh Dothraki, beginning to draw his sword.

“Stop it!” Daenerys ordered. “I don’t want her hurt.”

“No?” Qotho questioned. “No? You don’t want her hurt?” he said with a wave of his hand. “Pray we don’t hurt you, too. You let this witch put her hands on our Khal,” he kicked Mirri Maz Duur, who remained silent.

“Rein in your tongue. She is still your Khaleesi,” Ser Jorah reminded Qotho.

“Only while the blood of my blood still lives!” Qotho shouted, staring down at Drogo before turning his furious gaze to the knight. “When he dies,” he met Daenerys’ gaze from where she knelt at Drogo’s side. “she is nothing."

Finally, Daenerys stood. She had to clutch her belly and strain her legs with the effort, but she stood.

“I have never been nothing,” she spoke slowly, carefully. “I am the blood of the dragon,” she said fiercely.

Qotho remained unimpressed. “The dragons are all dead, Khaleesi,” he tacked her title on as he always did, with distaste and annoyance. He scoffed as he left, but did not say anything more.

Daenerys returned to looking at her husband, but she spoke to Ser Jorah. “I think you should wear your armor tonight, ser,” she suggested.

“I think you’re right,” he replied, gazing after Qotho and then turning back towards her with a bow before leaving the tent.

Mirri Maz Duur broke her silence upon his departure. “You’ve saved me once more,” she observed.

Daenerys looked down at the older woman. “And now you must save him.”

“He’s beyond the healer’s skills. All I can do is ease his pass,” the healer stroked his hair briefly, gently.

“Save him, and I will free you. I swear it,” Daenerys promised. All people deserved freedom, and if this woman could save her husband, Daenerys was more than willing to grant her that freedom. Mirri Maz Duur did not respond, however, and so she continued. “You must know a way. Some… Some magic,” at the last word, Mirri Maz Duur paused her movements, lifting her gaze to meet Daenerys’.

“There is a spell. Some would say death is cleaner.” Daenerys looked down at her husband, and then lowered herself to the level of the woman across from her. A spell to save Drogo- Daenerys would do anything, give anything, to keep her child’s father alive. To have him returned to her. She needed no further contemplation.

“Do it,” she said, not taking her eyes off of Drogo. “Save him.”

“There is a price,” Mirri Maz Duur told her.

“You’ll have gold- whatever you want,” Daenerys’ voice was breaking then, and she was having trouble stopping it.

“It’s not a matter of gold. This is bloodmagic. Only death pays for life,” Death? Whose? Her own? 

“My death?” She asked quietly. There was still so much she wanted to do, to see. She had never even seen her birthplace. She didn’t want to die. Not yet.

“No. Not your death, Khaleesi,” Mirri Maz Duur said with a slight smile. She thought for a moment, lowering her eyes. “Bring me his horse.” Daenerys nodded to Doreah, who was seated behind Mirri Maz Duur, and the girl stood and ran from the tent.

Daenerys turned back to Drogo, waiting. She knew that it wasn’t very long, but it seemed like an eternity had passed by the time she heard the rearing of Drogo’s horse.

Daenerys whipped her head around when a knife was thrust through the fabric of the tent, ripping though it, and Drogo’s horse was forced through the hole.

“Khaleesi,” Rakharo said, desperate. “Do not do this thing. Let me kill this witch,” he begged.

“Kill her and you kill your Khal,” Daenerys warned, hand on her stomach. Irri stood next to her, silent but watchful.

“This is bloodmagic. It is forbidden,” he told her, looking on as Mirri Maz Duur decorated her face with paint.

“I am your Khaleesi,” Daenerys reminded him. “I tell you what is forbidden.”

Mirri Maz Durr began to chant, approaching the horse slowly, knife in hand. “Go. Now,” she said abruptly, turning to Daenerys.

Daenerys turned to Rakharo without truly taking her eyes off of the scene before her. “Take her and leave,” when Rakharo refused, Daenerys repeated herself more fiercely, fixing him with a look. He complied, albeit reluctantly, and led Irri from the tent.

“You must go also, lady,” Mirri Maz Duur said, turning from the horse to Daenerys, her hands tight on the reins. “Once I begin to sing, no one must enter the tent. The dead will dance here tonight.”

Daenerys looked down at Drogo, whose eyes had since closed. Perhaps he was asleep. Perhaps not. She did not know. Whatever went on within his head, she hoped that it was peaceful.

She circled round him, touching his face briefly. “No one will enter,” she promised Mirri Maz Duur. 

The older woman said something in a language Daenerys didn’t know before plunging the knife into the stallion’s neck. Blood spilled out, onto Drogo, who didn’t react, and then splattered Daenerys’ face.

She did not flinch as the horse fell to the ground, dead. _Only death may pay for life_. “Bring him back to me,” she said, turning and leaving the tent. With her back turned, Daenerys began to hear the singing. 

She stepped out into the sun, and the ground felt unstable beneath her feet where it had not before. Somehow, although she was further away, the singing became louder. The horse’s blood dripped down her face, and she was reminded of a time not so very long ago when horse’s blood had promised her -and her son- great strength.

The horde looked on, somewhere between curious and horrified. Women she knew to be healers and midwives took one look at her, at the blood covering her face and hair, and turned heel. Ser Jorah approached her then, already in full plate. “What have you done?” There was a gravity to his tone, a severity.

“I have to save him,” Daenerys said, and her voice sounded desperate and pained, even to her own ears. A pain had begun in her womb. It was subtle at first, but then it intensified. Rhaego kicked from within her, and he kicked _hard_. 

“We could have been ten miles away from here by now on the way to Asshai. You would have been safe,” he told her, grasping her arm and leading her towards the horde. He called for the midwives and healers to come examine her, but the Dothraki merely gazed warily at them.

Mirri Maz Duur’s singing grew louder, and then Daenerys heard a shriek. When she turned to look back at the tent, smoke was emerging from every entrance and crevice, and she saw Mirri Maz Duur moving inside. Her bare feet leapt over the corpse of the stallion, and she twirled around and around, spinning around Drogo. The shrieking continued, and Daenerys could have sworn she saw something strange follow Mirri Maz Duur around the tent, dancing along with her. Something… Inhuman.

_The dead will dance here tonight_.

Qotho approached her then. “This must not be,” he said in Dothraki.

“This must be,” she forced out. Breathing had become difficult. Rhaego had ceased his kicking, but the burning had intensified. She had never felt burning before, had never known the sensation, and yet she was sure that that was what she was feeling.

“Witch,” Qotho spat at Daenerys when he saw her, face, neck, and clothes dripping with horse blood.

Rakharo came up behind Qotho, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing good will come of this-“

His Dothraki was cut off, however, when Qotho elbowed him wordlessly, knocking the younger man to the ground. 

Daenerys knew in an instant what Qotho meant to do. If he stopped Mirri Maz Duur before the ritual was complete… “No, you can’t!” She gasped out, stumbling towards Qotho, but he pushed her aside, and she had not the strength to stop herself from falling forward. She had managed to catch herself on her hands a bit, but the burning, the pain, it had grown worse. Someone helped her to sit, but she did not know who. She began to sob, unable to hold it in anymore, and words failed her.

Daenerys realized with horror that the last thing she could recall seeing was the ground coming at her, but since that moment, there had been nothing but darkness. There was a great pounding in her ears and womb, and she could almost hear the blood pulsing in her veins. With each pound of her heart, the pain in her womb burned stronger. 

She heard a woman’s voice speaking soothingly to her, and it took her a moment to process that it was Irri. There was a jumble of noise breaking through the pounding in her ears; Irri’s soothing, Ser Jorah’s voice, the clang of sword on arakh, the fall of a body to the ground. 

She heard the sound of feet coming towards her, and then Ser Jorah’s voice. “Are you hurt?” He asked.

“The baby… Is coming,” she strained, each syllable slicing her throat like a knife.

“Fetch the midwives!” Ser Jorah ordered again.

“They will not come,” came Rakharo’s voice, and Ser Jorah attempted to help her to her feet, but she could not stand, and so he lifted her into his arms. Daenerys groaned with the pain, for each movement, each breath, caused jolts of it to shoot through her body. “They say she is cursed.”

The voices faded after that, and she heard nothing but singing and shrieking. She knew that she was being carried, and she knew -though she wasn’t sure how- that she was being brought to Mirri Maz Duur.

In the middle of the ritual. 

_Only death can pay for life._

_The dead will dance here tonight._

_Only death can pay for life._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, whatcha think? Three and a half thousand words, so please be kind if it sucks. It took time and effort, lemme tell ya. I’m kind of on the fence about this one; I really like some aspects of it and others are kind of meh, so I’d love your thoughts.


	9. Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys grieves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, you guys. I’m not abandoning this story, I promise. I had all four of my wisdom teeth removed Thursday before last, and honestly, I’m still dealing with the freaking fallout. I’m only able to write this now because I’ve taken 800mlg of ibuprofen. There were some minor edits to the previous chapter, too. This is a chapter I’ve been particuarly excited for since I first started writing, and I hope I’ve done it justice.

_I was beaten, broken, all out of chances; and now it’s my time to rise from the ashes.- Nerdout, Take Back the Throne_

Chapter Nine: Phoenix

There were voices the first time Daenerys awoke. There were colors, too, but not much more than that, for her vision was blurred. Someone propped her head up, putting a cup to her lips to help her drink a few small sips of water before her head fell back against the pillow and she was lost to the world once more.

The second time she awoke, her vision had returned to her, as had her ability to comprehend her surroundings. She was on a daybed in the royal tent, furs beneath and atop her. She vaguely realized that the blood that had crusted to her face had been wiped away, although her clothes had not been changed. It took her a moment to work up the strength to open her eyes just a crack, only to see Ser Jorah seated before her, still in full plate, with his sword in his lap.

“Ser Jorah,” she said softly, and he promptly stood and sheathed his sword. Daenerys strained the muscles in her arms, forcing them to push her body up, but only managing to prop herself up a bit on one elbow. The throbbing and burning appeared to have ceased, but she found herself sore and weak. She wondered how much time had passed.

“Gently, gently.”

“My son…” She stopped to take a breath, finding speech used a great deal of energy. “Where is he? I want him.” Ser Jorah’s expression changed to one of grief and pity, and Daenerys feared the worst. She repeated herself nonetheless. “Where is he?” She demanded.

“The boy did not live,” her friend told her softly, and it took a full breath before the words fully registered, and Daenerys felt as if something between her heart and stomach dropped and fell far beneath the earth. No, he could not truly be gone. Surely Ser Jorah must be mistaken. But then, Ser Jorah would not lie to her, would he? Her son, her child, that she had never even gotten to _hold_ -

She lowered her gaze, feeling herself wishing that she had died along with her son. Surely death felt better than she did just then. It couldn’t very well feel any worse. 

“Tell me,” she commanded, fighting back the sobs that threatened to force themselves from her throat.

“What is there to tell?” He questioned, and something inside her snapped. Her child was _dead_. She wanted to know how it had happened. She _would_ know how it had happened.

“How did my _son_ die?” She demanded, breathing in short gasps of breath in her efforts not to let out her sobs.

“He never lived, my princess. The women say…” He trailed off, seemingly reluctant to continue.

“What do the women say?” She asked.

“They say the child was-“ 

Ser Jorah’s voice was cut off by that of Mirri Maz Duur. “Monstrous, twisted,” she said, stepping into the tent, and Daenerys’ neck ached when she turned to face the older woman. “I pulled him out myself.” When neither Daenerys nor Ser Jorah responded, she stepped closer. “He was scaled like a lizard. Blind, with leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the skin fell from his bones. Inside, he was full of graveworms,” the way she said last word prompted Ser Jorah to reach for her sword, but he chose not to draw it, and the woman continued.

“I warned you that only can death can pay for life. You knew the price.” The small fire of Daenerys’ fury towards Mirri Maz Duur grew, but she chose not to address it just yet.

“Where is Khal Drogo?” When the other woman did not respond, she went on. “Show him to me. Show me what I bought with my son’s life,” she said with a fierceness that surprised her.

“As you command, lady. Come. I will take you to him,” Mirri Maz Duur turned and left the tent, presumably to lead the way to Khal Drogo.

Ser Jorah, however, did not seem to understand her need to go to her husband immediately, for he said, “time enough for that later-“ before she cut him off.

“I want to see him now.” Her voice shook with each word, but she managed to keep her tone strong and commanding.

It took several minutes for Ser Jorah to help Daenerys to her feet, and it took a bit more for her to regain her balance and be able to walk.

When she lifted the flap of the tent and the sun hit her eyes, it was blinding for a moment, and it took time for her eyes to adjust. It was breezy on the clifftop, and the heat wasn’t as severe as it normally was.

Mirri Maz Duur walked with an almost casual sense of purpose as she led Daenerys towards her husband, Ser Jorah, Irri, and Rakharo following close behind.

To Daenerys’ horror, there were less than a dozen tents remaining, including her own. The horde had moved on, given up on their Khal.

“The khalasar is gone,” she said with dismay.

“A Khal who cannot ride is no khal,” Ser Jorah answered her. “The Dothraki follow only the strong. I’m sorry, my princess.” 

Daenerys didn’t feel able to respond. Her husband could not ride. Her khalasar had abandoned them. Her child was dead.

Khal Drogo had been laid out near the edge of the cliff, against a rock with some animal skins to keep him warm. Daenerys had barely caught sight of him before she ran over to him, her entire body screaming at her for the effort.

“Drogo,” she kneeled beside him, putting her hand on his cheek. “My sun and stars,” then she turned to the three behind her. “Why is he out here alone?”

“He seems to like the warmth, princess,” came Ser Jorah’s explanation.

Daenerys stroked her beloved husband’s cheek, then leaned into press her lips to his. His eyes were open, but they were glassy and unseeing. They reminded her of a dead man’s eyes; their sparkle was gone.

“He lives,” Mirri Maz Duur said. “You asked for life, you paid for life.”

Daenerys turned towards the older woman angrily. “This is not life. When will he be as he was?” He would come back to her. He must. He had to. He _must_.

She’d turned back towards Drogo by the time the sorceress -that was what this woman was, after all- spoke, but Daenerys turned to face her once more when she heard the first sentence. “When the sun rises in the west, sets in the east. When the seas go dry. When the mountains blow in the wind like leaves,” she said nothing more, only walking to stand at the edge of the cliff and look out at the horizon.

It was forever, then. Her husband was as good as dead. How was it that everything could be lost in one night?

Straining her legs and putting a hand on her knee to push herself up, Daenerys forced herself to stand once more. She did not look at the other three when she said, “leave us.”

Ser Jorah reached out to grasp her hand as she passed. “I don’t want you alone with this sorceress.”

“I have nothing more to fear from this woman,” she said with a slight shake of her head. Mirri Maz Duur had taken everything. Everything Daenerys held dear was gone. There was nothing left that could be taken from her. “Go.”

She walked to where Mirri Maz Duur had sat down, but the older woman only glanced at her briefly. “You knew what I was buying and you knew the price.”

The sorceress didn’t acknowledge Daenerys’ words, though. “It was wrong of them to burn my temple. It angered the Great Shepherd.”

“This is not God’s work. My child was innocent,” Daenerys said fiercely.

Mirri Maz Duur plucked a rock from the dirt, holding it in her wrinkled hands. “Innocent?” She chuckled, looking up at Daenerys from where she sat. “He would have been the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Now he will burn no cities. Now his Khalasar will trample no nations into dust.”

“I spoke for you,” Daenerys reminded her. “I _saved_ you.” She had saved this woman from being raped. This betrayal, this breakage of trust and theft of her dreams, stung far too much to pardoned.

Mirri Maz Duur chuckled again. “Saved me? Three of those riders had already raped before you saved me, girl.” Three? If this woman had told her as much before, Daenerys would have gladly brought her rapists to justice. The sorceress stood. “I saw my God’s house burn, there where I had healed men and women beyond counting. In the streets, I saw piles of heads; the head of the baker who makes my bread, the head of a young boy that I had cured of fever just three moons past. So tell me again exactly it was that you saved.”

Mago would have killed her when he was done, and so Daenerys told Mirri the truth. “Your life.”

She scoffed at that, though. “Why don’t you take a look at your Khal,” she suggested, turning her head towards him. “Then you will see exactly what life is worth when all the rest has gone.”

Daenerys felt for Mirri Maz Duur, this woman who had endured horror beyond recognition. She understood her fury. She would have understood if the woman would’ve wanted her rapists dead. And now that the sorceress had taken everything she loved, everything she had ever hoped to love, she understood that death could sometimes be better than life. But Daenerys had never harmed Mirri, only prevented her from being harmed further, only shown her kindness and compassion and trust.

She forgave Drogo for his initial treatment of her. She forgave the servants who had stolen from her and thrown her out of the house with the red door. She forgave the boys drafted into Robert Baratheon’s war against her father. She had even forgiven Viserys for much that he had done. But betrayal? Betrayal was not something Daenerys could forgive.

* * *

The sun had set. Daenerys had not bothered to change her clothes or fix her hair. She only wanted to be with Drogo. She did not want to waste a second of time apart from him.

And so as he lay in their tent, unresponsive and half-dead, she spoke to him in Dothraki.

“Do you remember our first ride, my sun and stars?” She wiped his shoulder with a wet cloth, trying to clean him since he could not clean himself any longer. “If you are in there,” she said, leaning down towards him. “If you haven’t gone away, show me.” She leaned up away from him again. His eyes did not move, only stared directly ahead.

“You’re a fighter,” she reminded him. “You’ve always been a fighter. I need you to fight now.” She ran the cloth down the length of his arm. “Rhaego is dead. He was born dead. But we can make another, my sun and stars. This time, I shall even let you choose the name,” she promised. Even still, he did not show any sign of hearing her.

“I know you’re very far away,” she took his face in her hand and turned it towards her. “But come back to me, my sun and stars.” His unseeing eyes did not move, and he did not blink. He did not even seem to feel her hand on his face, or the cold of the ring on her finger brushing his cheek.

She knew, then, looking in to his eyes, the eyes of a dead man, that he would not come back. It was the end for Khal Drogo. It was the end for him, her beloved husband.

She lay down beside him, drawing circles with her fingers on his chest. When she spoke next, it was in shaking Common Tongue. “When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east…” She sobbed softly, closing her eyes tightly for a moment. “Then you shall return to me, my sun and stars,” she inhaled deeply and pushed herself up with her hands, moving up to Drogo’s face.

She leaned down with soft, gasping breaths and pressed her lips to his. She stayed there for a long moment. She knew this would be their last kiss, and she wanted to cherish it for the rest of her days. 

There was a pillow to their right. She reached over to grasp it with shaking fingers, pulling it over her husband’s face, and pushing it down to block his airflow. She sobbedharder then, unable to even close her mouth to keep them in. It seemed an eternity that she sat beside him with a pillow over his face. His body shook as he suffocated, but he showed no other signs of resistance or objection. She hoped with every fiber of her being that this meant there was not enough of him left to feel any pain.

* * *

It was well into the night when Daenerys rose from Drogo’s side. She hadn’t wanted to leave him, even once he was dead, but she knew that she must. The preparations passed by in a blur; she vaguely remembered Ser Jorah telling her he’d already taken begun preparations for Drogo’s funeral. 

She cleaned and dressed Drogo herself, refusing to let anyone -even his remaining bloodriders- attend him. She only allowed his bloodriders to carry him to the funeral pyre because she herself was not strong enough to do it herself. She would have liked to build the funeral pyre herself, too, but she had been with Drogo during its construction.

She’d allowed her handmaidens to bathe her and dress her. They wove her hair intricately, and she had only sat there in a daze. It was when she was in the bath, gazing idly at the dragon eggs, that the idea had come to her. The decision took no contemplation.

And so, mere hours after Drogo had died, she stood before his funeral pyre, wearing the dress he had married her in. The wind that night was cold, and it blew right through her dress. Those of the khalasar that remained stood behind her.

“Is this your command, Khaleesi?” Rakharo asked, holding the chest of dragon eggs. She moved her gaze from Drogo’s body to Rakharo and nodded slightly before looking back at her husband.

Ser Jorah stepped up beside her. “Drogo will have no use for dragon eggs in the Night Lands. Sell them. You can return to the Free Cities and live as a wealthy woman for all your days.”

Daenerys did not want to be a wealthy woman. She cared not how much money she had. That was not her desire. She did not look at the older man, merely shook her head, saying, “they were not given to me to sell.”

Rakharo had placed the dragon eggs on the funeral pyre with Drogo; one on each side of his head and one at his feet, as Daenerys had commanded, but Ser Jorah persisted. “Khaleesi, my queen, I vow to serve you, obey you, to die for you if need be, but let him go, Khaleesi,” she turned towards him for the first time that night. “I know what you intend. Do not.”

“I must,” she said softly. She shook her head, somewhat frustrated with the knight. “You don’t understand-“

“Don’t ask me to stand aside as you climb on that pyre. I won’t watch you burn,” his voice shook, and there was fierce emotion in his eyes, in his expression. He was terrified.

“Is that what you fear?” She gazed at him sympathetically, understanding now. She placed a hand on one cheek and stood on her toes to gently kiss his other cheek. She turned away from him then, to the remaining Dothraki and captured slaves.

“You will be my khalasar,” she addressed them. “I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish, no one will stop you. But if you stay, it will be as brothers and sisters, as husbands and wives.” Many chose to walk away, deciding to go their own path. Many others, however, chose to stay.

It was Mirri Maz Duur’s soft laughter that brought Daenerys’ attention to her. She was kneeling in the dirt, one of Drogo’s bloodriders standing beside her, whip in hand.

“Ser Jorah, bind this woman to the pyre.” He shifted his feet, but did not move towards the sorceress. “You swore to obey me,” she reminded him. He nodded and moved towards her, the bloodrider assisting him in pulling her to her feet and towards the pyre where she would meet her death.

Daenerys addressed her new khalasar once more. “I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen of the blood of Old Valyria. I am the dragon’s daughter. And I swear to you that those who would harm you will die screaming.” Her voice was fierce and commanding, and as strong as she had grown these past months, the sound seemed foreign to her ears.

“You will not hear me scream,” Mirri Maz Duur called out

“I will,” Daenerys told her. To herself, she said, “but it is not your screams I want. Only your life.” 

She held out her hand for a torch. Her fury at Mirri Maz Duur was renewed. As soon as her fingers grasped the torch, its flames rose imperceptibly. Daenerys turned toward the pyre, bending down to light the branches that wrapped around it. 

If Daenerys had been observing her new subjects, she would have noticed them whispering about how the fire spread at a rate that seemed almost impossible, circling around again and again until it reached the pyre itself, taking mere seconds on its journey. 

She gazed out at the rising flames unblinkingly, holding the touch out until someone took it from her. Then Mirri Maz Duur began to sing.

_No_. She thought fiercely. The witch would _not_ turn her husband’s funeral into some kind of spell. As if sensing her fury at the woman, the flames rose up to consume her before she could even finish the thought. Mirri Maz Duur’s singing turned to wailing, and then her wailing turned to silence. Daenerys turned to Ser Jorah, meeting his eyes briefly, then stepped over the first row of branches. 

The flames rose up around her, and she could feel her dress catch fire. She knew Ser Jorah was afraid, but he had nothing to fear. Daenerys no longer wanted to die, and fire certainly wasn’t going to hurt her. The pyre collapsed in on itself as she felt her dress burn away, the flames licking her skin. 

As she was completely engulfed, Daenerys sighed in contentment. She was safe and warm. She’d reached the center of what had been the funeral pyre, and smiled softly when she saw what remained of Drogo’s body. Sitting down beside him, she noticed the dragon eggs had rolled near where she now was when they’d fallen. She reached down and grasped the black one with both hands, turning it over. It had softened a bit, but it was still a lovely thing.

To her surprise, she heard a crack, and it was not the crackling of a fire. She looked down at the the egg, and was astonished when she saw a large crack in its shell. And then another, and another. Before her very eyes, a tiny snout thrust its way through the softened shell. She gently set the egg down beside the others, which, she noticed, were in much the same state. She knew they had not been stone. Not truly.

She lay down beside them, the five of them amongst the flames, and for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime, Daenerys slept.

* * *

When she awoke, it was almost dawn, and the fire was nearly dead. There was nothing left of Drogo’s body, but three tiny dragons had curled up with her. She smiled at them adoringly, and they chirped back at her and she laughed. Daenerys sat there with them for another hour or so, until the fire was completely out and the Dothraki had woken from their sleep.

She was sitting with her legs crossed and head down when Ser Jorah stepped over the smoldering wood. The green and gold dragon -Rhaegal, she’d called him, after her eldest brother- was curled up in her lap. Daenerys raised her head when she heard the steps towards her, and gazed up at Ser Jorah and Rakharo. The red and black dragon, Drogon (after her husband) clawed his way up to perch on her shoulder, calling out at the newcomers, and the cream-colored Viserion (after her youngest brother) was beside her.

Ser Jorah took several moments to process the sight in front of him before he knelt. “Blood of my blood,” he said reverently. 

She stood then, her skin covered in ash, with Drogon on her shoulder, Rhaegal in her hand, and Viserion climbing her leg, all three crying out in confusion at the world they had been born into.

Drogon was trying his best to fly, flapping his wings and shrieking as loud as his little lungs would allow. Each of her new subjects looked at her and her newborn children in wonderment before lowering themselves to the ground in a kneel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it, the end of season two! Whatcha think? I really wanted to include a scene of her actually inside the fire itself, and the hatching, too. At least part of it, anyway. Did you know that it can take up to twelve hours for a baby chick to hatch? I imagine dragon eggshells are thicker, too, so I figured it’d take ‘em awhile. In any case, I hope you like it, and I look forward to writing chapter two. Now if you’ll excuse me, I do believe it’s my bedtime.


	10. The Red Comet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Red Waste stretches on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the passage of time. Isn’t it strange how only a few months ago, I posted the first chapter of this fic? And now, we’re at the beginning of season two, ten chapters, and over thirty thousand words. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, but here we are. This chapter has an original scene, and I hope I did alright. I’ve taken some liberties with Targaryen and Valyrian customs, but I haven’t been able to find anything suggesting that they aren’t true, so I’m just gonna assume they are. I’d like to note also that I’m combining episodes one and two of season two, since both of Dany’s scenes are so goddamn short. Also I have a headcanon that Dany doesn’t sweat because heat has no effect on her.

_Those without swords can still die upon them._ \- J.R.R. Tolkien

Chapter Ten: The Red Comet

It took several weeks for Daenerys to fully regain her strength and for her stomach to return to its previous state. It was difficult, looking down and seeing the swell of her belly. She thought of Rhaego each time she looked in the mirror. And with thoughts of Rhaego came thoughts of Drogo, too. Thoughts of how she had smothered him, how his body had shook as he suffocated. She would remember the dead, vacant look in his eyes for the rest of her days; his eyes had been dead long before his last breath, and there was no change in them after he died.

She had lost a husband and a child, but gained three children. Three dragons. Each slept curled up against her each night, nuzzling her affectionately. She suspected that she would be unable to rise each day without them. They all wanted to sit atop her shoulders throughout the day. Drogon always managed to get his wish, but the other two would squabble over it.

There was one day when she woke up feeling better than she had since Drogo’s funeral. She actually felt refreshed after sleeping, and she didn’t flinch at the bright sunlight. Her head no longer ached, her dizziness had subsided, and she wasn’t feeling quite so miserable.

It was for this reason that she was sitting out in the sun with a loose braid, Irri and Doreah speaking in soft voices nearby. She was reading one of the books Ser Jorah had given her at her wedding, having decided to do her best to educate herself on her homeland and ancestors. 

Viserys had always taught her that women (especially royal women such as herself) did not fight. They didn’t study hand-to-hand combat, nor did they know how to use a sword. She had always believed everything Viserys had told her, but it seemed he had been very wrong.

Traditionally, Valyrian women were taught to fight alongside men. Queen Visenya was as much of a warrior as her husband had been, adept at wielding her own sword, Dark Sister. 

Viserys had always told her women didn’t fight. Viserys was dead. She’d made her decision.

Standing from her seat of the sun-warmed rock, she began the walk back to camp, her handmaidens fallowing close behind.

She found Ser Jorah sitting round a fire with Rakharo, as he often did of late.

“Khaleesi,” he stood abruptly, Rakharo following his example. Both men bowed slightly, as all Daenerys’ new subjects had taken to doing.

“Ser Jorah, Rakharo,” Daenerys greeted with a nod.

“What can I do for you, Khaleesi?” The knight asked.

“I have a task for both of you,” she said in Dothraki. When they remained silent and waiting, she continued. “You will teach me how to fight.”

They both began to speak at once.

“Khaleesi-“

“My queen-“

She held up a hand, silencing them. “Ser Jorah, you will teach me to use a sword. Rakharo, you will teach me to fight on horseback. Both of you will assist me in hand-to-hand combat.” Her tone brooked no argument, and they conceded with a bow.

* * *

It wasn’t so much the heat that bothered Daenerys. It was more that she’d had so little water in so long. Oh, she’d had enough to keep herself alive and moving, but no more than that. She was hungry, but they had so little food left that no one person was able to eat their fill. Her body was tired, more so than it had been during her pregnancy, even, and each step ached. Despite this, though, the horses needed their strength, and so they all walked. Their mounts had been able to have even less food and water than she had.

Her throat was dry, and she was barely producing any saliva. She hadn’t passed any urine since the sun was at its peak the day before, and somehow, the memory of having anything but the scent and taste of dirt in her nose and mouth escaped her.

She walked slowly, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. Her legs ached, but she trudged on. She could not risk riding any of the horses; they needed their strength, and it couldn’t be wasted carrying anyone who could walk.

It had been weeks since they’d bothered to set up a mirror in her tent when they made camp, but she knew that dirt covered her body. They hadn’t enough water for baths, and Daenerys refused to deprive her khalasar of water so that she could be clean.

Her dragons still vied for her attention, and in order to prevent fighting amongst them, she’d allow them to alternate who sat upon her shoulder throughout each day. At the moment, Drogon was shrieking from her shoulder. She’d had a sleeve made for her garments, with thick leather so that her children’s claws wouldn’t hurt her.

He flapped his wings in an attempt to fly, blowing a pleasant breeze across her face. None of her children had managed to fly yet, their wings not yet strong enough to lift their bodies off the ground, small though they were.

Daenerys cooed at Drogon, smiling affectionately at him. He was not Rhaego. None of them were Rhaego. But they were her children nonetheless. Holding up a piece of horsemen to him, she cooed again, but he remained uninterested.

Doreah, who frequently observed Daenerys’ children, spoke from her place a pace or so behind. “What did your brother say about them, Khaleesi?”

“He said they ate meat.” Getting the hatchlings to eat had been a feat that she had not yet accomplished.

“He didn’t tell you what kind of meat?” Her handmaiden questioned further.

Daenerys shook her head. “My brother didn’t know anything about dragons. He didn’t know anything about anything.” It had taken her time to accept this as truth. She knew Viserys had been a fool, and she knew he’d been terrible to her, but he was all she had ever known for so long. Everything she had grown up knowing of her family and of the world, it had come from him. He had been wrong, though, about a great many things.

Deciding Drogon had had enough time to exercise his wings, she gestured to the Dothraki who led the horse that carried the wooden cages she’d had constructed for her children. He stopped, and Drogon allowed himself to be placed inside his cage.

No sooner than he had been put in the cage, however, that Daenerys heard a horse’s distressed whinny, and she whipped her head around just in time to see her silver collapse into the dirt.

She rushed over, knowing very well that nothing could be done. The horse had been precious to her; all she had left of Khal Drogo. Looking to Ser Jorah questioningly, she hoped he would tell her something different than what she knew to be true. He shook his head, his face solemn. 

Daenerys ran her fingers through the soft white fur, feeling the muscles of her beloved gift. She wasn’t breathing anymore.  


“She was Drogo’s first gift to me.”

“I remember,” Ser Jorah told her. 

Daenerys stroked the horse’s face. “I promised to protect them,” she said in reference to the worn people who stood around them. “Promised them their enemies would die screaming. How do I make starvation scream?” They knew it took a great deal to fell a horse, and they were a superstitious people; the death of the Khaleesi’s steed was far from a good omen.

“A trick I never learned, I’m afraid,” her friend replied, his own hand on the fallen horse.

She looked up from her mare’s face, out at the horizon. “Does it ever end?”

“This is farther east than I’ve ever been, but yes, Khaleesi, everything ends. Even the Red Waste.”

“And you’re sure there’s no other way?” She had spoken with him about this before, but it was difficult to wrap her head around this being their only option. 

He had explained before that geographically, the Red Waste wasn’t their only option, but it was their only option if they wished to avoid hostilities. Even so, he repeated himself.

“If he we go south to the land of the Lhazareen, the Lamb Men will kill us and take your dragons. If we go west to the Dothraki Sea, the first khalasar we meet will kill us and take your dragons.”

Daenerys raised her eyes from the mare. “No one will take my dragons,” she said firmly.

“They are too weak to fight, as are your people,” he reminded her. “You must be their strength.” 

She knew that people looked to their leaders for strength. She had promised to be their leader. She didn’t feel very strong. Sometimes, she felt like nothing more than a grieving widow. It was difficult to remind herself that she was more than that. Ser Jorah reminded her when she could not.

She turned towards her friend. “As you are mine.”

“Blood of my blood,” she addressed her bloodriders, pulling herself up to stand. When the men approached her, she continued. “Rakharo, Agoo, Kovarro. Take our remaining horses. You will ride east, you southeast, and you northeast.”

“What do we seek, Khaleesi?” Rakharo questioned.

“Cities, living or dead. Caravans and people. Rivers or lakes or the great salt sea. Find how far the Red Waste extends before us, and what lies on the other side,” she instructed.

Eager as always to do her bidding, Rakharo said, “right away, let’s go,” and moved to prepare his mount.

As her bloodriders walked away and the remaining onlookers followed the men with their gaze, Daenerys turned to Ser Jorah, who nodded his approval of her decision. Ser Jorah had become her friend and advisor, and she was grateful he felt she was making the right choice.

She trudged through the dirt towards Rakharo, who was stroking the muzzle of his steed. “Rakharo,” she addressed him in Dothraki. He turned his smiling face to her. “You are my last hope, blood of my blood.”

His smile fell. “I will not fail you, blood of my blood,” he swore.

“You never have,” she reminded him, this time in Common Tongue, thinking of the many times he had spoken for her, stood for her, and defended her. He could have left with the others. He chose to remain by her side instead. He was a loyal man, and there was no one better for her to put her trust in.

He smiled slightly, saying, “this is… bad time to start,” and she returned his smile with a small one of her own, stepping back as he mounted his steed and rode off, his horse’s hooves kicking up dust as she looked on.

She watched his figure fade into a silhouette against the setting sun, and then he passed beneath the horizon. She looked up at the sky, seeing a red comet streaking across the clouds.

* * *

Her companions blistered and burned in the sun, but Daenerys’ skin remained unblemished. Heat had never bothered her as it had others, and now that she had sat through a blazing fire without any harm coming to her, she knew she wasn’t likely to experience discomfort from the sun’s rays.

They had not bothered to set up a full camp, but they remained where her bloodriders had left them, ensuring that they’d be able to find them once more. It had only been weeks, she knew, and yet it felt like so much longer. Irri and Doreah sat leaning against each other’s backs, their eyes barely open. Most of what Daenerys and her khalasar do is sleep. There was little food remaining, and so little water that they only allowed themselves a sip every couple of hours.

Daenerys was nearly asleep when she heard hoofbeats in the distance. She barely registered them until Ser Jorah said a weary, “Khaleesi.”

She opened her eyes, allowing them to focus on the approaching horse.

Rakharo’s horse. He was not riding it.

Ser Jorah hesitantly approached the steed, almost as if he expected the horse to lash out at him. Daenerys forced herself to stand, slowly moving towards the steed. as the knight opened the Rakharo’s saddlebag, a somber expression crossing his features. He pulled something out, his fingers holding what looked like hair. As Daenerys drew closer, she heard the buzzing of flies, saw the drops of blood falling from the tightly stitched leather of the saddlebag.

She knew very well what had Ser Jorah had found, but she quickened her pace nonetheless, brushing her palm briefly against the horse’s muzzle.

“You don’t need to see this,” the knight said without looking at her. She would have none of that, however.

“He is blood of my blood,” the words were dry and her throat burned with them, as it always did of late. She buried her fingers in her bloodrider’s curls, grasping the braid that had been chopped off. If they knew enough of the Dothraki to cut off his braid, that said something of Rakharo’s killers.

“Who did this?” Daenerys knew that it wasn’t Ser Jorah’s fault, but she couldn’t shake the fierceness form her eyes.

“Khal Pono, perhaps. Khal Jhaqo. They don’t like the idea of a woman leading a khalasar.” Rakharo would not have allowed anyone to disrespect her, Khal or no. She’d gotten him killed.

“They will like it far less when I am done with them,” she clenched her teeth, fingers still gripping Rakharo’s hair. 

Irri approached them then. Daenerys had seen how Irri acted around Rakharo; she’d smile and look away, blush and look at her feet. She’d had a similar reaction when Daenerys questioned her about it.

Irri recognized the horse, and then she recognized Rakharo’s hair. She fell to her knees, sobs wracking her body. Ser Jorah stepped back, head bowed in respect.

“They killed his soul!” Irri cried. She reverted to Dothraki when she became emotional, unable to keep her thoughts straight enough for the Common Tongue.

Daenerys reached down and put her hand on the side of Irri’s face, and her friend reached up and grasped Daenerys’ wrist, almost painfully.

“Shh. They cannot kill his soul,” she reassured the devastated woman.

“They did! They butchered him like an animal. They did not burn his body,” she sobbed, and Daenerys knelt before her, holding her friend’s face in her hands. “He can never join his ancestors in the Night Lands.” Daenerys pulled Irri to herself.

“Shh,” she said again. “We will build him a funeral pyre,” she glanced up at Ser Jorah’s somber face, then back down at Irri. Daenerys pulled her friend back and looked into her eyes. “And I promise you, Rakharo will ride with his ancestors tonight.” Her voice was firm, as if she was ordering the Great Stallion himself to allow Rakharo into the Night Lands.

Daenerys leaned her forehead against Irri’s, and her friend’s sobbing turned to wailing. She held her through it all, and sat beside her until Rakharo’s funeral pyre was nothing but ashes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand there we are, chapter ten! Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Concerns? Furious rants about how terrible of a person I am? I can’t say for certain I’ll disagree with you on any point, so please feel free to share.


	11. Exhale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we see the gates of Qarth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it didn’t get posted last night, you guys; my boyfriend works nights and so I didn’t see him on Valentine’s Day itself, and so we had our Valentine’s Day on Saturday instead, which meant I didn’t get to do any writing last night, so here we are, posting it at four in the morning. That’s the way we do it. Also I had trouble with a quote for this one, and the title. What am I even doing with my life (hint: nothing)

_Show me what you got, bring on the hurricane._ \- In This Moment, River of Fire

Chapter Eleven: Exhale

Daenerys’ skin had never browned or reddened in the sun the way other people’s did, and so she could say with absolute certainty that the dusting of brown that covered her skin was just that: dust. Dust and dirt from going so long without a bath. If she scratched her skin, the dirt would come off in streaks, specks of it getting stuck beneath her fingernails. She suspected she would never be able to wash the taste of dirt from her mouth.

Her dragons still refused to eat. She thought that perhaps they simply didn’t recognize the dried horse meat she offered them to be food. After all, it could only be called food if one allowed for a rather loose interoperation of the word.

The sun had begun to set, and they had been preparing for another night in the Red Waste when they heard hoofbeats and a whinny. While she could recognize the rider as a Dothraki, his identity was unclear until he grew closer and she could make out his face.

Kovarro brought his horse to a stop before her, except… It wasn’t his horse at all, which was very strange.

“This isn’t your horse,” she pointed out to him.

He dismounted and started towards her, grasping the horse’s reins as he went. “It was given to me by the Thirteen,” he said with a smile. “The Elders of Qarth.”

“Qarth?” She’d never heard of Qarth. No one in the Free Cities had ever mentioned it, and she hadn’t heard of such a place from her brother. 

“Three days to the east, on the sea,” Kovarro said, still smiling. 

He was clearly quite refreshed; he must have been given food and water, enough to last him the three days it took to return to their camp. It was a good sign that Qarth’s Elders had provided Kovarro with food and water, and an even better sign that they had given him a horse. This, however, was not enough to convince Daenerys that Qarth would be a place for her people to rest and revitalize themselves.

“Will they let us in?”

“They said they would be honored to receive the Mother of Dragons,” Kovarro told her as he retrieved his canteen from the horse he’d been gifted, walking towards her again.

Desperate as she was to find her khalasar food and shelter, Daenerys was still wary of unknown lands and unknown people. She wanted to lead these people, yes, but she had also promised to protect them. She didn’t want to lead them into a slaughter.

Turning to Ser Jorah, who stood behind her, she asked, “what do you know of this place?”

He had a hand resting against his chin, and he was looking at the ground pensively. “Only that the desert around their walls is called the Garden of Bones. Every time the Qartheen shut their gates on a traveler, the garden grows,” he slid his eyes over to her with the last sentence, his final word quiet, almost a whisper.

She turned back to Kovarro, who was still smiling. “Go and rest, blood of my blood,” she told him, and he led his new horse towards the camp.

Approaching Ser Jorah, she took a deep breath, inhaling the dust of the Red Waste and trying to ignore the terrible dryness of her mouth. “Should we risk it?” She asked him, knowing he shared her concerns.

The knight said nothing for a moment, silent in thought. “I don’t see much choice,” he finally told her. “Other than Qarth and its neighboring town, the nearest cities are in Lhazar, and we cannot return there.”

She nodded, resigning herself to the situation at hand. “Very well. We leave at dawn.”

* * *

Daenerys could hear the sounds of a city faintly behind Qarth’s high walls. When she and her followers grew closer to the gates, they opened slowly, spearmen pouring out.

They hadn’t even a day’s worth of food and water left. If the Qartheen didn’t let them in, there would be nothing Daenerys could do to save her people. Her life, the lives of her khalasar, and the lives her dragons- they were all in the hands of strangers.

When more and more spearmen marched out of the gates in lines that were more militaristic than Daenerys had ever witnessed, she turned to Ser Jorah, who had donned his armor.

“I thought we were welcome.”

“If you heard a Dothraki horde was approaching your city, you might do the same, Khaleesi,” he pointed out.

Daenerys looked back at her followers. “Horde?” Did they constitute a horde at all? There were so few of them.

The spearmen came to a stop once they’d assumed formation, parting for one man out of a group of well-dressed dignitaries to come forward. He was a portly man, pale in coloring, and either of an age or older than Ser Jorah. Except he was wearing far better clothing than she’d ever known Ser Jorah to wear, and heady perfumes wafted off of him.

“My name is Daenerys-“

Before she could finish introducing herself, the man cut her off. “Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen,” he finished for her. His voice was higher-pitched than one might expect for a man, and privately, Daenerys found the sound rather grating.

“You know me, my lord?” This was quite a surprise; Qarth was thousands of miles from Westeros. However could he have heard of her?

“Only by reputation, Khaleesi,” even Daenerys could tell that this man spoke little to no Dothraki, for his pronunciation of her title was stilted and wrong. “And I’m no lord, merely a humble merchant. They call you the Mother of Dragons.”

“And what should I call you?”

“Oh, my name is quite long and quite impossible for foreigners to pronounce. I am simply a trader of spices,” he told her with a slight nod. “But we,” he turned towards the other dignitaries behind him, “are the Thirteen, charged with the governance and protection of Qarth, the greatest city that ever was or will be,” he smiled.

“The beauty of Quarth is legendary-“ she began.

“Qarth,” the spice merchant corrected, raising a finger in the air. He had a condescending tone of voice, as if he took great pleasure in making others feel foolish and unintelligent.

“Qarth,” she agreed.

“Might we see the dragons?”

She looked behind her at the horse that carried her dragons’ three cages. They had never met anyone but herself and her khalasar, and she knew not how they would react to it. She knew, too, that there was every chance that all this man, this spice merchant, wanted was to take her children from her when she was weakened and unable to fight back. She had basic understanding of how to fight with a sword, she hadn’t one, and while she could probably fend off the spice merchant himself using her hands without too much trouble, if the spearmen tried to take her children, she could do little to stop them.

“My friend, we have travelled very far. We have no food, no water. Once I see my people fed, I would be honored-“

He cut her off again with, “forgive me, Mother of Dragons, but no man alive has seen a living dragon. Some of my more skeptical friends refuse to believe your children even exist. All we ask is the chance to see for ourselves.”

“I am not a liar,” she informed him, growing tired of his condescending tone.

“Oh, I don’t think you are,” he said, raising one painted eyebrow. “But as I’ve never met you before, my opinion on the matter is of limited value.” The patience in his voice was infuriating. It reminded her of how people spoke to her when she was a child.

“Where I come from,” she began with a forced smile. “Guests are treated with respect, not insulted at the gates.”

“Then perhaps you should return to where you come from. We wish you well,” he smiled and nodded, turning to walk away.

She stepped forward abruptly. “What are you doing? You promised to receive me.” How dare they imply they would be honored to give her and her people shelter and then turn them away?

The spice merchant turned back around, a confused expression on his face. Daenerys strongly suspected that his confusion was entirely false. “We have received you. Here we are, and here you are,” he observed.

Ignoring the insolence, she told him the truth of it. “If you do not let us in, all of us will die.”

“Which we shall deeply regret, but Qarth did not become the greatest city that ever was or will be by letting Dothraki savages through its gates,” he gestured his hand towards her in reference to her followers. Her people were not savages, and neither was she.

As the Thirteen turned back to the gates, Daenerys took a step forward. Ser Jorah saw her, saw the anger and fear in her eyes, and warned her, “Khaleesi, please be careful.”

Despite this, however, she stepped forward quickly. She’d been careful, and it had only gotten them refused entry into Qarth by a perfumed spice merchant with a grating voice.

“Thirteen!” She addressed them, and as she did, the spearmen thrust their spears out in front of them, each weapon hitting the ground with a thud and kicking up dust into the air. The Thirteen stopped, however, and turned to face her. “When my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me and destroy those who have wronged me. We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground. Turn us away, and we will burn you first,” she warned.

“Ah,” the spice merchant stepped forward, finger in the air once more. “You are a true Targaryen. Only, as you said a moment ago, if we don’t let you into the city, you will all die, and so-“

The spice merchant didn’t have the chance to finish his thought, for a large man with a deep voice and dark skin stepped forward to address him. “Retreating in fear from a little girl is unbecoming of the greatest city the greatest city that ever was or will be.”

“The discussion is over, Xaro Xhoan Doxos. The Thirteen have spoken,” when the spice merchant said this man’s name, he had far more respect in his voice than when he’d said Daenerys’ name, and of this she took note.

“I am one of the Thirteen, and I am still speaking.”

The spice merchant turned his head towards Daenerys, gesturing in reference to her. “The girl threatens to burn our city to the ground and you would invite her in for a cup of wine?” He questioned.

“She is the Mother of Dragons,” reminded Xaro Xhoan Doxos. “Do you expect her to watch her people starve without breathing fire? I believe we can allow a few Dothraki without dooming our city.” Daenerys turned to Ser Jorah, wondering why one of the Thirteen was bothering to speak for her, but saw no answer in the knight’s eyes. “After all, here I am, a savage from the Summer Isles, and Qarth still stands.” 

“Our decision is final,” the spice merchant said firmly.

“Very well,” Xaro Xhoan Doxos took a few steps towards Daenerys and her people, placing his hand on the hilt of a dagger at his hip. “I invoke Sumai,” he turned back towards the spice merchant, and the other dignitaries murmured amongst themselves. He drew the dagger and continued. “I will vouch for her, her people, and her dragons in accordance with the law,” he grasped the blade of the dagger in his fist, sliding it up and clenching his hand before opening his palm, turning it towards the other members of the Thirteen.

“Be it on your head,” the spice merchant told him, clearly quite angry at being overruled.

Xaro Xhoan Doxos merely smiled and faced Daenerys. As the gates opened with a groan and a creak, he held out his injured hand to gesture towards them. “Welcome to Qarth, my lady.”

When the gates opened she saw a beautiful city with painted buildings and a harbor. There were palm trees taller than any she’d ever seen, and birds cawed as they flew over the sea. Daenerys smiled slightly, so relieved she could barely think, and led her people into the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well there we go, a bit less filler. Season two isn’t one of my favorite overall season for Dany, because not a whole lot happens. The Qarth storyline is just kinda meh imo, but there’s lessons she’s gotta learn there and we really need the House of the Undying, so we gotta get through it. Get excited for when I get to season three. That’s when we get to the good stuff, lemme tell ya. I’m excited and it’s pretty far off still.


	12. Gilded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys receives a proposal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hole E. Shit you guys, I’m so sorry, I was very sick last weekend. And my boyfriend was sick, too, so it’s not like either of us was able to take care of the other. It sucked. Also imma skip some stuff the show does and go with some of what the book has for the Qarth arc, because fuck you it’s my fic that’s why.

_I thank you for never facing me; swimming in the mud, never coming clean._ \- In This Moment, Roots

Chapter Twelve: Gilded

The weather in Qarth was not so terribly different from that of the Red Waste, but the air around them was much cooler, since they were so close to the sea. There was far more vegetation than in the Red Waste, as well; the Qartheen had carefully cultivated greenery within their walls. 

Daenerys insisted upon her handmaidens having baths at the same time as her rather than attend her during her bath. They were all equally covered in dirt and filth, and there seemed no reason to force Doreah and Irri to be uncomfortable longer than necessary.

It hadn’t even been a week since they’d arrived, and already, Daenerys felt rejuvenated. 

It was plain to see that her people felt the same. Still, a place to rest and resupply was not all they needed from Qarth. 

If Daenerys was ever to cross the Narrow Sea, she would need ships to do it. Ships and an army. She could purchase both, but she’d need funding to do it. Presently, she had no funding. She could only hope that the Thirteen would see a Targaryen with three dragons for the opportunity it was.

Xaro had told her just that morning that five days was time enough for her to have rested, and that she must now be presented to the people of Qarth. Daenerys was well aware that he likely wanted to show off her presence in his home; how often was a man given the opportunity to boast that the Mother of Dragons slept under his roof? She didn’t mind this, though. Let people stare if they so wished. The more people who knew of her, the more sympathy she would get for her cause.

And so there she sat, leaning against the great stone balcony of her sleeping chamber in Xaro’s home, attempting to teach Drogon to cook his own food. She’d learned that her children would eat cooked meat and cooked meat alone, but thus far, none of her three dragons had managed to breathe out anything but smoke.

“Dracarys,” Daenerys told her largest son for the second time. Beside her, Doreah watched on in curious excitement. Drogon looked down at the raw meat she’d put in front of him, then looked back up at his mother in confusion. He tilted his head as if to say, _this won’t do, it’s raw!_ She smiled indulgently at him and repeated herself, enunciating the word and carefully drawing out its syllables.

Drogon looked down at the meat and hissed, smoke coming from his mouth before small flames followed. Doreah clapped, and Daenerys laughed at Drogon’s triumphant little growls as he sniffed the meat and, once he’d judged it to his liking, swiftly devoured it.

“He’ll be able to feed himself from now on,” Daenerys observed, then turned to prepare herself for Xaro’s party. Doreah, however, did not move, and out of the corner of her eye, Daenerys saw that her handmaiden reach for the small bowl of meat beside Drogon. “Let him sleep, Doreah.”

“Yes, Khaleesi,” she held her hand out for him, and the little dragon climbed atop her palm.

“He loves you,” Daenerys told her friend, turning as Doreah put her son back in his woven cage.

Daenerys stepped over to her bed, stopping beside Irri, who was mending the clothes that had gotten damaged during their trek through the Red Waste.

Picking up one of her Dothraki vests, she examined the work her friend had done. “I rewove this part of the top,” Irri told her in Dothraki. “And I fixed the heel on this one,” she said, holding up a boot.

Daenerys thanked her with a smile.

Doreah moved to join them beside the bed. “Did you see the dress Xaro had made for you?” Her handmaiden picked up the silk gown and brought it to Daenerys, holding it out to her. It was a lightweight thing of such a shining blue that one might mistake it for a piece of the sky, plucked from the heavens and sewn into fabric. “They say he’s the wealthiest man in Qarth,” Doreah said of their host.

“It is known,” Irri agreed.

“And if Qarth is the wealthiest city in Essos-“

Daenerys cut Doreah off, gripping the feather-light fabric in her fingers. “The last time a rich man gave me a dress, he was selling me to Khal Drogo.”

When Irri offered up a Dothraki prayer in Drogo’s memory, it occurred to Daenerys then that while she did miss Drogo terribly and grieved his death greatly, she did not remember their wedding night with fondness, nor any night soon thereafter. She pushed the thought from her mind.

Daenerys went back to examining Irri’s handiwork, and Doreah set the dress back down on the bed, smoothing it out beneath her hands. “You would look like a real princess in Xaro’s-“

“She’s not a princess. She’s a Khaleesi,” snapped Irri, and Doreah looked down. “You should wear it, Khaleesi. You are their guest. It would be rude not to.”

Not long after, the sun had begun its descent, and Daenerys was exchanging pleasantries with Qartheen nobles in Xaro’s perfumed gardens. She wore the gown that had been gifted her, and her hair was unbound. Without a braid to keep it contained, it was wild about her face. 

Men in painted tunics held colorful birds beneath the shade of the trees, and elegant women passed by jeweled statues and lanterns that burned scented oils. A gentle breeze blew in from the ocean, and music mingled with laughter and the lilting sounds of different tongues.

Daenerys had found that every person she met was fascinated by her very existence. Daenerys had taken to speaking with the Silk King and his female companion had been speaking to Daenerys for some time, but only of trivialities. “And you must visit the night market,” the woman gushed. “The Qartheen night market is like no night market you’ve ever seen.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Daenerys kept her voice and smile polite, trying not to offend the companion of a potential ally.

The woman began to speak again, but Daenerys overheard voices arguing in Dothraki and excused herself with a smile.

Daenerys approached Ser Jorah, who was standing before two Dothraki warriors picking at the jewels encrusting a golden peacock. She smiled at those she passed, ignoring their beckoning hands as politely as she was able.

She came to a stop before the three men and the statue. “What are they doing?” She demanded of Ser Jorah in Common Tongue.

“Malakko says the statue is too heavy to carry. Kovarro says that Malakko is an idiot. They can pry out the gems, the rest is pure gold. Very soft. He can chop off as much as we can carry,” Daenerys looked to each man in question as Ser Jorah spoke.

“Or melt it,” Kovarro suggested. “Very simple.”

“We are his guests!” Daenerys exclaimed, aghast. “You can’t pry it or chop it or melt it.”

“Of course not, Khaleesi!” Kovarro told her. “We will wait until we leave.” 

“Not even when we leave.”

“Why not?” Kovarro questioned.  
  
“Our host saved us from the Red Waste and you want to steal from him? I will hear no more,” she insisted, her dismissal clear. At that, the two Dothraki warriors walked away. Daenerys did not miss, however, Kovarro’s theft of a golden cup.

Staring at her retreating bloodrider, Daenerys exhaled a combination of amusement and frustration. “My brother used to say that the only thing the Dothraki knew how to do was steal things better men have built.”

“That’s not the only thing. They’re quite good at killing the better men,” Ser Jorah told her, suggesting that if she so chose, the Dothraki could slaughter the Qartheen without too much effort.

“That’s not the kind of queen I’m going to be.”

“Mother of Dragons,” at the greeting, Daenerys turned from her conversation with Ser Jorah to face the approaching man.

He was an aged man and, looking at him, Daenerys wondered if the man had ever had hair on his body, for he showed no trace of it on his head or face. She vaguely remembered seeing him upon her entrance to the city; he had been amongst the Thirteen. 

“On behalf of the Warlocks of Qarth, I welcome you,” he lowered his head in a slight bow. He held his hand out to her, palm up. “A demonstration?” Smiling at the surrounding spectators, Daenerys put her hand in the warlock’s. She tried to ignore the lurch of her stomach when their skin touched. 

“Take this gem,” Pyat Pree placed an emerald in her hand. “Look at it. Into its depths,” he instructed. “So many facets,” when he smiled, she noticed that his teeth were stained the same bluish-purple as his lips. “Look closely enough and you can see yourself in them.” Daenerys did as he instructed, and indeed saw a green-tinged version of herself. “Often more than once,” came the warlock’s voice again, inexplicably further away. When she looked up, she saw that an exact copy of Pyat Pree stood not far from where she did.

“Should you grow tired of Xaro’s baubles and trinkets, it would be an honor to host you at the House of the Undying. You’re always welcome, Mother of Dragons,” he walked away from her then amongst clapping and cheers, and his copy disappeared in a wisp of smoke. She realized that the hand that once held the emerald was empty, smoke dissipating from where it had been. 

“My apologies,” came her host’s deep voice from behind her. She turned, and he continued. “Pyat Pree is one of the Thirteen. It was customary for me to extend him an invitation. Customs die slow deaths in Qarth.”

She glanced at Ser Jorah, who stood off to her side, his fist resting against his chin in thought. “What is the House of the Undying?” She asked Xaro.

“It is where the warlocks go to squint at dusty books and drink shade of the evening. It turns their lips blue and their minds soft,” he leaned towards her slightly, his tone turning conspiratorial. “So soft, they actually believe their parlor tricks are magic,” they shared a laugh, and he put a hand her back, leading her away to introduce her to more merchants and dignitaries. She found that she thoroughly disliked having his hand upon her back, and thus extracted herself from his touch as soon as she was able.

Leading her through his palace, Xaro asked Daenerys about her desire for her father’s throne. When she explained that it had been taken from her before she was born by men who’d put her on the run before she could crawl, he didn’t seem to understand. He did, however, seem to comprehend her idea of being a better ruler to the people of Westeros than her predecessor.

Finally, she expressed a question she’d had for the better part of a week. “At the gates of the city, you bled for me. Why?”

“I will show you why,” he said, holding out his hand to her. He lead her far from the party, down winding marble stairs beneath the palace.  


He gave no further explanation until they reached a passageway. Along the walls were candles, although their light was dim, and Daenerys could barely make out the detail of the large round door at the end of the passage. Unsheathing a sword, he thrust it against the door with a _clang_. “The door and the vault is made of Valyrian stone,” he hit his blade against the door again. “The hardest steel does not make a mark.” 

She approached the door; it was far taller than Xaro was, and he was a foot and a half taller than she. “I offered the greatest locksmiths in Qarth their weight in could if they could break into it. I made the same offer to the greatest thieves. They all went home empty-handed. The only thing that can open this door is this key.” He held up a medallion hanging around his neck.

“And behind the door?” His only response was to chuckle and look down. “And it can all be mine?” For the first time, Daenerys found herself hopeful that she may have finally found some help.

“All? Let us say half,” he sounded almost surprised. “More than enough to buy horses, ships, armies. Enough to go home.”

There was a reason he hadn’t shown her this vault as soon as she entered his palace. “All I have to do…?”

“Is marry me,” he finished for her.

She laughed. “That was a romantic proposal.”

“I’ve already married once for love, but the Gods stole her from me,” Xaro said softly. Daenerys understood that almost too well. “I come from nothing. My mother and father never owned a pair of shoes. But marry me and I will give you the Seven Kingdoms, and our children will be princes and princesses.” Knowing how he would accomplish this feat, she looked over her shoulder at the vault. “The time is right, Daenerys Targaryen, first of your name,” he told her, using the Westerosi style of royal titles. “Robert Baratheon is dead.”

* * *

Daenerys’ mind was still whirling when she returned to her lavish chambers. Dead. This man who had been the bane of her existence since before she had even been born, he was dead.

Ser Jorah, however, was unsurprised. As he told it, Robert Baratheon was not a healthy man. He was as unsurprised as he was unhopeful.

“If you cross the sea with an army you bought-“

She cut him off. “The Seven Kingdoms are at war with one another. Four false kings destroying the country.”

“To win Westeros, you need support _from_ Westeros,” Ser Jorah told her fiercely. She was grateful for his counsel, even when they disagreed; he was the only one who spoke so freely.

“The usurper is _dead_. The Starks fight the Lannisters, and Baratheons fight each other.” A war-torn country was a country easier won, was it not? If the lords of Westeros were too busy warring with each other to look eastward, they would never see her coming.

“According to your new friend, who earned your trust by cutting his hand?” Ser Jorah was exasperated, she could see, but she needed to get him to understand.

“The time to strike is now. We need to find ships and an army or we’ll spend the rest of our lives rotting away at the edge of the world.”

“Rich men do not become rich by giving more than they get. They’ll give you ships and soldiers and they’ll own you forever,” he told her, gesticulating with this hands. “Moving carefully is the hard way, but it’s the right way.”

She looked down at her children resting in their cages. “I know the opportunity before you seems like the last you’ll ever have, but you must-“

She cut him off again. “Do not speak to me like I’m a child,” she brushed past him.

“I only want-“

“What do you want? Tell me,” she insisted.

“To see you on the Iron Throne,” he said simply.

“Why?” she pressed. He must have a reason. Everyone had a reason.

“You have a good claim. A title. A birthright. But you have something more than that,” he took slow steps towards her. “You may cover it up and deny it, but you have a gentle heart. You would not only be respected and feared, you would be loved. Someone who can rule and should rule. Centuries come and go without a person like that coming into the world. There are times hone I look at you and I still can’t believe you’re real.” 

Xaro was right, then. Ser Jorah was in love with her. She looked away from him, thinking. It broke her heart. Not in the same way it must have broken his, of course, but it broke her heart that she could not love him back. Not the way that he wanted.

She blinked rapidly, forcing the tears away. She was hurting him, her dear friend, and she feared she could do nothing to prevent it. All she could manage was to go on as she had done and endeavor not to give him false hope.

“So what would you have me do as my advisor?” She did not look back at him when she spoke. She couldn’t bear to look at his face just then. If there was pain in his eyes, she didn’t want to see it.

“Make your own way. Find your own ship. You only need one. The allies we need are in Westeros, not Qarth,” he said, his voice quiet, nothing of the fierceness that had been there before.

“And how do I get the ship?”

“I’ll find it for you. A sound ship with a good captain,” he promised.

Finally, she turned to look at him. “I look forward to meeting him.”

Ser Jorah lowered his head in a slight bow. “Khaleesi.” He kept his eyes lowered as he walked to her chamber door, and she watched him go. It was clear he understood the full meaning behind her words. She wondered if not rejecting him outright made her a coward.

* * *

As she lay awake in bed that night, her children snoring softly nearby, she could not get the images of hands on her skin out of her head. She could think of nothing else. Since she’d left the party, she’d had little time to think, but now that it was time to sleep, it seemed her thoughts wouldn’t to leave her alone.

The silk of her sheets and the lightness of her feather pillows did nothing not ease her mind. It was as if every man who had ever touched her had left an imprint upon her skin, staining her. Within a single hour, two men had expressed their desire to bed her, if not in so many words. Daenerys tried to picture Xaro or Ser Jorah atop her, and found herself so repulsed she felt she might be sick. She turned over and, finding her pillow a bit wet, realized she had been crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooo so we get to see some of the aftermath of Drogo’s treatment of Dany finally kicking in. Am I doing that right? I think most women have had something happen to them, at some point in their lives, but I am obviously no expert. If I’m doing it wrong, lemme know.


	13. The Fallen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tragedy strikes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to come back with a short one, you guys, but the next one is likely to be long and complicated. So how ‘bout that virus that’s going around? Hope everybody’s staying safe and clean. Anyway, for the Qarth arc we’re doing some book, some show, some original. Also, I had time to draw how I’ve pictured Daenerys for this fic. Emilia Clarke, as amazing as she is, isn’t quite as I’m picturing her character. Of course, I’m not satisfied with the drawing and I don’t think I could do her justice the way I’ve pictured her in my mind, but I tried. I’m not gonna post it in the text here because I freaking hate it when people do that since it messes up mobile reading, so you can take a look at it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DaenerysWinsTheThrone/comments/fhvjdg/daenerys_in_my_fanfic/

_Cut me down, but it’s you who has further to fall._ \- David Guetta, Titanium

Chapter Thirteen: The Fallen

Daenerys was returning from the docks with Kovarro and Xaro, who’d explained to her that Qarth was a place of trade and therefore had a great many ships from all over the known world. She’d seen seen some of Xaro’s dark-skinned kin from the Summer Isles, YiTish ships loaded with more gold and jewels than she’d ever seen, and even a few ships she was told were Asshai’i, their workers cloaked, their faces hidden from view. 

She’d decided to take Ser Jorah's advice and attempt to leave Qarth on one ship rather than with a fleet. The day’s venture had not been lucrative, however; more than one captain had refused on the grounds that having women on a ship was bad luck. More still had insisted that they would by no means allow a single Dothraki on deck, never mind actually transport them anywhere. All she spoke to seemed to agree that dragons had no place at sea.

While she’d rather expected the former two objections, the idea that dragons had no place at sea seemed quite ridiculous to Daenerys. Dragons could fly, and although her children were small, they grew larger every day. It wouldn’t be long until they’d be soaring higher than she could see them.

She was having something of a melancholy day; it wasn’t often that Daenerys allowed herself to grieve for her husband, but lately, it would seem she could not help herself. Keeping her children in close proximity to her helped, but she couldn’t very well stroll around Qarth with a dragon on her shoulder.

Xaro had brought up his proposal only once since the first time. When he did, she’d felt a strange terror shoot through her like a bolt of lightning; fierce and burning one second, then gone the next. 

Her host, for all his faults, seemed to sense her mood, and chose to remain silent until they reached the gates to his home.

“Khaleesi,” he said with a slight bow, holding his hand for her to enter before him.

She almost wished she hadn’t.

The courtyard was strewn with the corpses of her Dothraki. They’d been butchered as if they were animals. Heads had been severed from bodies, blood covered the smooth stones she walked upon. It was nearly dry now, but still stuck to her shoes with each step.

If her Dothraki were dead, what of Irri and Doreah?

What of her dragons, her children?

Xaro belted out instructions to his guards, but Daenerys barely heard him. She must get upstairs. By the state of the blood, it had been hours already, but even so, perhaps-

Melancholy gone, she stepped over more than one corpse on her way to her bedchamber, Daenerys thrust open the door firmly, the wood nearly splintering her hand. Her eyes searched frantically for signs of life, but found none. The woven cages of her children were open and empty where she’d left them.

As if things could not possibly get worse, the intricate carpets were soaked with the blood of her handmaidens. Irri lay by the bed, her throat slit, hands covered in blood where she must’ve tried to stop the bleeding. Doreah’s fate had been worse. Her body had crumpled against the table her children’s cages sat upon, her nose broken and face bloodied. One of her hands had its fingers removed at the first knuckle, the pieces on the table by the cages. 

She’d been trying to protect them, Daenerys realized. Whoever took her children, Doreah had died trying to stop them. Irri, too, Daenerys was sure.

She knelt between her two friends, the blood sticking to the bare skin of her knees. They’d been with her from the start, and now they were gone. Her dragons, too.

No. She’d find them. She’d _find them_. And whoever stole her children and murdered her handmaidens, well. Doreah’s fate would seem tame compared to what Daenerys had in store for her killer.

Daenerys closed her eyes. Inhaled slowly, then exhaled. She opened her eyes again, and stood. Turning back to Xaro, who was still panting from the exertion of walking up the stairs so quickly, she fixed him with an expression she knew made grown men and children alike avert their eyes.

“Find them. Find who did this, and find my children.”

* * *

That evening, she chosen a spot on Qarth’s beaches and ordered a funeral pyre be built for the dead. A crowd of Qartheen surrounded the pyre, watching intently. They’d never seen Dothraki customs, Daenerys knew. It was just another spectacle, another piece of gossip.

_She_ was just another spectacle. But her people, her friends, they were not. She wouldn’t allow them to be. They would enter the Night Lands with honor and respect.

Doreah and Irri’s bodies, she’d insisted upon arranging herself. She’d scrubbed their blood from her bedchamber as best she could herself, too. They were her friends. She didn’t want Xaro’s servants cleaning up what was left of them.

When she was handed the torch and lit the pyre, she felt tears sting her eyes. She closed them briefly, then opened them once more, letting the flying sparks burn away her tears.

“Mother of Dragons,” Daenerys almost didn’t hear the voice, so entranced was she in the flames.

Turning, she saw Pyat Pree standing beside Xaro. Ser Jorah had returned, and stood off to the side with Kovarro. From their expressions, Daenerys surmised that they had not seen Pyat Pree approach. Strangely, Xaro was unsurprised. Ser Jorah put a hand on his sword, Kovarro on his arakh.

“If you wish to see your dragons again, I invite you to the House of the Undying. We shall wait for you,” with Daenerys’ next blink, the warlock was gone. There were no footprints in the sand where he had stood; it was as if he had never been there.

The wind blowing in from the sea whipped her hair about her face, and she clenched her fists. The flames of the pyre to her back burned brighter and higher for a moment, but she did not notice.

She turned her gaze to the crumbling towers in the distance, where she hoped her children were.

“I am coming for you,” the roar of the flames drowned out her whisper. “Do not be afraid. I am coming for you.”

Daenerys felt three swells of emotion, young but fierce and wild, and for the first time since their birth, she could’ve sworn her children answered her.

_Mother._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, what’d you think of my super short chapter? This one was almost entirely original content with a bit of show inspiration thrown in, so I’d love to hear what you thought of it. Also, fuck how they messed with Doreah's character in the show. She deserved better than that.


	14. The Tower of Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys visits the House of the Undying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my county has declared a shelter in place and Animal Crossing came out like right after I posted the last chapter and the day after was my boyfriend’s birthday so I’ve been alternating between sleeping, and playing AC, and spending time with my boyfriend to make up for our inability to go outside. So yeah, that’s what’s going on with me. How ‘bout you guys? This one’s a bit more complicated. It’s got more book content than show content, I think; those of you who have read the books will recall the House of the Undying scene and definitely see some similarities. So here we go!

_I smile and I say that the world is just fine as these fucking parasites eat up my spine; so I ask you once, and I ask you again: where do your roots start and where do your roots end?_ \- In This Moment, Roots

Chapter Fourteen: The Tower of Ghosts

Qarth contained a great deal of color. The water shone a sparkling blue, the flowers were vibrant. The Qartheen draped themselves in bright silks and satins, jewels stitched into the intricate embroidery. The trees were a deep green, and the birds in them were exotic and beautiful.

Approaching the House of the Undying, however, all greenery disappeared. Trees were far behind her, the Qartheen stayed far away, and no birds flew overhead. There was no grass beneath her feet, only coarse dirt that seemed packed into the ground.

The House of the Undying itself was clearly older than any of the other buildings she’d seen since her arrival in Qarth. It was made of dark gray stone, and Daenerys thought vaguely that it might have once been a great tower, but those days were long gone. The crumbling stones rose into the sky, but not as far as they would’ve originally done. There was no doors or windows that she could see, no break in the walls.

Kovarro and Ser Jorah had flanked her sides the entire trek, and when she came to a stop at the tower’s base, they stopped with her.

“A house of ghosts, Khaleesi. It is known,” Kovarro told her. Then, to Ser Jorah, “where are the guards?”

“No guards. The warlocks kill with sorcery, not steel,” Ser Jorah looked up at the tower, at the gray sky above them. Even light, it seemed, would not come near the House of the Undying.

More than one man had tried to kill Daenerys. More than one had used sorcery in their attempt.

“Let them try.”

She would find a way in. She would find a way to her children if she had to tear down the walls herself, stone by stone. Undeterred by the lack of welcome, she started around the base of the tower.

Daenerys heard the coarse dirt crunching beneath Ser Jorah’s feet not far behind her, but when she next blinked, she was no longer outside. Or rather, she thought she wasn’t. There was no sign of light as far as she could see, no matter which way she turned her head to look. And yet, it felt like stone beneath her feet instead of the dirt that had been there just a moment before, and the air was musty in the way that old buildings often were.

Faintly, she heard Ser Jorah’s voice calling out for her. He didn’t sound like he was merely on the other side of a wall, however; he sounded like he was half a mile away, his shout just barely reaching her ears.

She knew it was sorcery that brought her into a tower with no doors or windows, but surely the warlocks wanted her to find her dragons. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be much point to bringing her there, would there? If they’d have wanted to kill her outright, they would’ve done it the second she was stepped onto their grounds. So why, if they did indeed want her to find her dragons, did they not provide any light?

No sooner had she thought of her need of light than a torch blazed to life to her left. Taking it in hand and letting the warmth flow through her, she examined her surroundings. She stood on a spiral stairwell. If she had taken so much as a step, she would have fallen.

They were watching. The warlocks were there, watching her from the shadows, from the walls.

“You’re trying to frighten me,” she told them softly, these eyes that she couldn’t see. “Your magic isn’t the worst I’ve seen.”

_No, it’s not, is it?_ Asked a voice. No, _voices_. A thousand voices, all at once, coming from the very air around her, the stones themselves, and yet nowhere. She whipped her head around, trying to find the source of the voices, seeing nothing but crumbling stone.

“Where are you?” she turned around on the stairwell, careful to keep her feet safely on the ledge. “Where are my dragons?”

_They are here. We are here._ Again, the voices were everywhere and nowhere, all at once. _Ascend, Daenerys Targaryen. Always ascend._

There were three whispers of _mother_ in her mind, and yet somehow above her. She wondered if these voices were deceiving her, if she should go down the stairs rather than up them, but decided that no, they wanted her to find her dragons. Whatever the reason, they wanted her to find them. 

She walked up the stairs, up and up and up, each step she took harder than the last. Finally, she rounded the stairway once more, and then it was gone. She was standing in a hallway, it seemed, but she could only guess; it was completely dark but for the few feet of light her torch gave off. But then, a candle lit to her right, its soft glow illuminating a door, and her torch was gone from her hand.

The voices were in her head again -or perhaps the air; she still couldn’t tell- and she ceased all movement to focus on their words.

_Speak to those you would, or stay silent if it pleases you, but step not over the threshold of their rooms. Left is right and right is wrong. Do not linger and always ascend._

No sooner had the reverberating voices ceased than the door to her right creaked open. _Right is wrong_ , she reminded herself. But still, she was curious, and as she stepped closer, the candle burned brighter.

A woman as colorless as Daenerys pulled a black longsword from a fresh corpse, blood seeping from the wound as the blade emerged from it. She turned her head and met Daenerys’ eyes, and Daenerys was struck by the vibrance and intensity of her purple irises. She looked away from the woman, to her left, but there was no door for her to walk through, so she stepped forward, and as she did so, the candle above the woman’s door went out.

Only a few feet away was a second door, also to her right. It, too, was illuminated by a candle, and it swung open with a creak. The interior of this chamber was different, however; a battle raged in snow that was deeper than she’d ever seen, and the scent of blood and corpses and death wafted into her nose, a flurry of snow obscuring her vision for a moment. A man in black clothing screamed, bodies falling into the snow around him, and then, in the distance, blue eyes shone brightly, and the bodies that had only just fallen rose up again and advanced on the man.

_Do not linger_ , she reminded herself, and looked to her left again. Still, there was only stone, and so she walked forward once more, seeing another door to her right, only this one was already ajar. 

A large room lay beyond the door, columns lining a marble walkway to a great throne made of a thousand swords. A translucent man -no, a ghost, she realized- sat on the throne, then vanished, only to be replaced by another, and another, and another, faster and faster until they stopped on a man with long gray hair, wild eyes, and too many scabs covering his arms and legs to count. He held a bottle of bright green liquid in his hand, and he clutched it fiercely.

“Burn them all!” The ghost screamed, disappearing half a second later. A great burly man sat on the throne just for a moment, holding a blue rose. He was replaced by a smirking blonde boy only a few years younger than herself, and then an even younger boy fidgeted nervously where his predecessor had sat, but was gone a second later, too. A beautiful middle-aged woman with short blonde hair sat on the throne, and she was corporeal, unlike any of the others. She wore a grim expression, and closed her eyes, listening to an arrogant child’s voice fill the room, echoing off the walls.

“But I will be queen?”

“Oh, yes,” answered the scratchy voice of an older woman. “You’ll be queen… For a time. Then comes another: younger, more beautiful, to cast you down and take all you hold dear.”

The blonde woman’s hands clenched in her lap, a tear trickling down her cheek, and then she burst into flames.

_Do not linger._

She moved forward, passing yet another door, also ajar. A man stood in worn robes, tiny, frail, and ancient. He turned his eyes on her, and Daenerys was shocked to see that although they were blind and unseeing, they were otherwise identical to her own.

He spoke then, his words shaky and nearly a whisper. “A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing,” he said. “and the dragon must have three heads.”

She passed more doors on the right, none opening for her as the others had done. One made her heart tremble and ache, for it was a red door, and she could swear she smelled the scent of lemons from it. Still, though, she pressed on, until there were no more doors to her right, and finally, _finally_ one to her left.

Again, she felt three wild voices calling for her. _Mother._ When she opened the door on her left and stepped through, however, the voices disappeared. There was only the sound of a summer breeze and the gurgling of a baby, for she was in a tent. Her and Khal Drogo’s tent.

She pushed through the curtains and saw him.

Her husband.

She never thought she’d see his face again, and yet here he was. 

“Moon of my life,” he greeted her in guttural Dothraki. It had been so long, and yet hardly any time at all had passed. Hadn’t it only been a few short months? But here he was, sitting before her with their child in his lap. The child reached his chubby hands out for her, and she stepped closer, tears filling her eyes and threatening to fall.

“This is dark magic, like the magic that took you from me,” she said softly, more to convince herself than him. “Maybe I am dead and I just don’t know it yet,” she mused. “Maybe I am with you in the Night Lands.”

“Or maybe I refused to enter the Night Lands without you,” Drogo murmured. “Maybe I told the Great Stallion to go fuck himself and came back here to wait for you.” 

Daenerys smiled and looked down at their child. “That sounds like something you would do.” He took her hand then and guided her to sit down beside him on their bed and meet the son she’d never gotten to hold. 

She reached out and touched the little boy’s face, his skin too soft to not be real. Taking him in her arms, the child rested his head against her chest, and she clutched him closer to her.

“Or maybe it is a dream,” Drogo continued. “Your dream, my dream… I do not know. These are questions for wise men with skinny arms. You are the moon of my life. That is all I know, and all I need to know.” He took her chin between two of his fingers. “And if this is a dream, I will kill the man who tries to wake me.” She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his.

Daenerys would never know how long she stayed there, holding her son and leaning against her husband. She only knew that she could have stayed there for the rest of her life, and that she would’ve been happy in doing so.

A screech broke her from her reverie, however, and she heard her children calling her again. _Mother._

She held Rhaego closer, tears falling down her cheeks, then gave the child back to Drogo. Her husband was dead and their son had never lived. This beautiful dream was false. It wasn’t real. 

_Do not linger._

“Until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,” she whispered to Drogo, her voice breaking. “Until the rivers run dry and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves,” she was crying freely now, ands she put her hand on his cheek, feeling the familiar roughness of his beard against her palm. She kissed Drogo on the lips then, slowly and lovingly, and then leaned down to kiss her son on his forehead.

_Mother_ , she heard again, and, closing her eyes tightly, she stood up on shaking legs. If her eyes had been open, she would’ve seen Drogo and her son motionless and silent, as if they been snuffed like candles no longer in use.

All she saw when she opened her eyes was the tent and everything in it turning into smoke and shadows. The shadows morphed into a circular chamber before her very eyes. She didn’t notice the two dozen doors lining the chamber walls, nor how they were each open just a crack with bright eyes peeking through, for she was focused entirely on her children, chained to the table in the center of the room, crying out for her.

Their cries lessened the closer she got to them, and she reached out to stroke under Drogon’s chin. “I’m here, my darlings,” she assured them. “I’ve come for you.”

Then she heard Pyat Pree’s voice. “They miss their mother,” she whipped around to face the warlock, who left the door behind him open. His bald head shone, even in the dim light, his eyes shrouded in darkness from deep within their sunken sockets. He smirked at her, and even if it had been a kind smile, Daenerys would not have found it comforting or pleasant, for his lips and teeth were stained blue.

“They want to be with you,” came another warlock on, this one from behind her, and she saw him step through the door when she turned to him. “Do you want to be with them?” he asked.

“You will be,” Pyat Pree assured her. “When your dragons were born, our magic was born again.” 

“It is strongest in their presence,” said a third warlock.

“And they are strongest in yours,” said a fourth. “You will be with them through winter, summer, and winter again. Across a thousand thousand seasons you will be with them.”

“And we will be with you,” one of them told her, “until time comes to an end.” That explained why they were so determined to have her find her dragons, then.

Suddenly, there was a coldness encircling her wrists, and she looked down to see manacles on them, chains materializing out of nowhere and attaching themselves to the manacles, pulling taunt by some unseen force.

“Welcome home, Daenerys Stormborn,” Pyat Pree told her, his smile never leaving his face as he and the others -there were more now, one warlock for each door- crept towards her with small steps.

“This is not my home,” she said softly. “If I was going to stay here, I would’ve stayed in your conjured tent with my husband and child.”

“Yes,” Pyat Pree smiled. “You did pass that test, and I must say I was somewhat surprised that you did. But it’s for the best. You will stay here now.” The other warlocks nodded their agreement, stained teeth showing in their blue smiles.

Daenerys didn’t reply. Her dragons called out to her again, both in their screeches and in her mind. _Mother?_ This time, it was a question, she knew, and she glanced back at them.

She turned to face the warlocks surrounding her again, and, ever so softly, she spoke. “Dracarys.”

Hearing the command, her children began to huff with effort, until, after a few smokey tries each, flames burst forth from their mouths. Drogon was the first to breathe in Pyat Pree’s direction, Viserion and Rhaegal following close behind. The fire engulfed a screaming Pyat Pree quickly, and the other warlocks backed away, hissing at her and her children. She turned her gaze on them, and somehow, the flames burning Pyat Pree left from him to the other warlocks, burning them all before her very eyes.

From the flames, she heard the voices again.

_The shape of shadows… morrows not yet made… drink from the cup of ice… drink from the cup of fire… mother of dragons… child of three… three heads has the dragon…_

The chains disappeared in a mist, and Daenerys flexed her fingers and rolled her wrists. Viserion and Rhaegal leapt onto her shoulders without hesitation, Drogon into her arms.

The crumbling stones fell around her, each turning into smoke before hitting her, and from the smoke, she heard the voices one last time.

_Three fires you must light… one for life and one for death and one to love… three mounts you must ride… one to bed and one to dread and one to love… three treasons you will know… once for blood and once for gold and once for love…_

Even as the words echoed around her, stones continued to fall and turn to smoke, until what had once been a crumbling tower was no more than its foundation, with her standing in the center.

* * *

Her children still with her when she entered Xaro’s lavish bedchamber, they stayed silent at her mental command.

Kovarro stood to her left, Ser Jorah to her right, and several Dothraki behind her. Theformer used his arakh to rip the medallion from around Xaro’s neck, waking the large man abruptly.

He woke with an exclamation, and began to babble. “Khaleesi, please,” he tried, but she ignored him.

“Come,” she ordered, turning as her children screeched their outrage. 

When Daenerys had returned from the House of the Undying with her dragons, all of them unharmed, Xaro’s servants had balked and told her all she wished to know. It was Xaro who killed Doreah and Irri, Xaro who gave her dragons to the warlocks. Xaro who had tried to have her and her children imprisoned for all time.

Underneath her host’s home, Kovarro slid the medallion into the lock, turning it slowly. There was a great metallic sound from within the vault, and the door swung open. Daenerys held a torch up, peering into the vault.

“Nothing,” she observed quietly. She had been tricked. She could’ve married him for nothing. Only her own suffering. Turning to Xaro, she spoke to him. “Thank you, Xaro Xhoan Doxos. Thank you for teaching me this lesson.” At Daenerys’ nod, her Dothraki warriors forced Xaro into his own vault.

He objected a great deal, protesting that he could help her, but he was ignored and, within moments, the door was closed and locked, and his booming voice could no longer be heard.

Later, she found herself offered gifts from the homes of Qartheen nobles, who were astounded at her ability to rid them of the warlocks. She’d asked for books on dragons and Westeros, anything they had, and gold. A great deal of gold and jewels, and a half dozen ships. Needless to say, Xaro’s home was stripped of all its finery. She would make good use of it. She supposed that, in retrospect, he had not been entirely useless.

No, she thought as she boarded one of her new ships and began to make way for Westeros. He had not been entirely useless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it, the end of season two! I had SO much fun with this chapter, I gotta say. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please let me know what you think, and if you see any typos or consistency issues with previous chapters, please let me know, I really wanna hear that stuff.


	15. Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the journey begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it season three or season 2.5? Scientists can’t tell.
> 
> No but for real I know it seems like I’m staying with canon at first but I promise that that’s not what’s happening here. It just seems like that at first. We’ve got what is largely another setup chapter here, so please bear with me. Also, it’s probably a good idea to have a map of the Known World out if you’re trying to get a good idea of where they are. I mention places here, but you’ll have a better understanding of routes (both intended and unintended) referenced here. Of course, I’m editing things a little bit so that the locations make a bit more sense, but I’ll go into more detail in the end notes so there are no spoilers for this chapter here.

Chapter Fifteen: Rain

_After you burn, there’s no one else._ \- ONE OK ROCK, The Way Back

The air was crisp and clean, and the sky was clear. So clear, in fact, that the ocean and sky seemed to be one entity, each blending into the other with intense blue, strong winds, and small waves. The wind seemed harsher than it probably was, for they were gliding across the water at a great speed.

Her hair was loose at her back, and the salty sea air seemed to have permeated it. It was even frizzier than it usually was as a result. She should’ve plaited it, she knew. Each morning, she sat in front of a mirror, intending to carefully comb it into three parts, but when she stared at her reflection, she found herself in tears that Irri and Doreah were not standing on either side of her, ready to help her prepare for the day. It just didn’t feel right to dress her own hair. It felt wrong, all wrong, to braid it herself when it should be her beloved handmaidens braiding it instead. And so she raked a comb through it as best she could and left it at that.

Daenerys’ small fleet (in truth, one could hardly call it a fleet) had made decent progress over the past fortnight, and were nearing New Ghis, from what Ser Jorah told her.

Ser Jorah had been a tremendous help to her on their journey. She admittedly did not have a great understanding of cartography, and although the maps the Qartheen ships sailors showed her were both accurate and extensively detailed, her advisor understood them far better than she did. He had advised her to stop in the small town of Port Yhos a week into their journey, allowing them to restock their supplies and for their sailors to have a night on land. This, it seemed, was a great boost for morale, and ensured the sailors would work just as hard for the remainder of the journey. 

They were just coming up on a full fortnight when the green shores of New Ghis began to peek over the horizon. After reaffirming their destination with the captain, Daenerys returned to what had become her favorite hobby of late: watching her children fly.

It had taken nearly a month to prepare for their voyage, Daenerys choosing to remain in what had been Xaro’s home until they were able to leave Qarth. With a steady supply of meat, her dragons grew quickly. Drogon was the first to take flight, and his brothers followed soon after. The first tentative flaps of their wings were terrifying to watch; she was so worried they would fall and injure themselves. They didn’t, though, and by the time they were out to sea, they were soaring through the air. 

They had taken to fishing recently, as well as fighting amongst each other for the pleasure of eating their catch. Watching them, her screeching children, fly through the sky, it always warmed her heart, made her smile. She could feel their energies within her; her mind screamed with their frustrations at not being able to have a fish they wanted, at seeing their brother devour it instead. 

Drogon had been the victor of this particular battle, and he landed on the ship’s railing to greet her. She was stroking his chin affectionately when Ser Jorah spoke from behind her.

“They’re growing fast,” he observed.

That was certainly true. Not two months ago, they’d been the size of small cats. Currently, they could be compared to a large dog, perhaps. But if Daenerys was planning on following Aegon the Conqueror’s example, she’d need her dragons to be much larger than they were currently. They would need to instill fear in the hearts of her enemies. All they instilled just then was curiosity and fascination.

“Not fast enough,” she told the knight, hand still on Drogon. When he nuzzled her, the roughness of his scales scraped her skin. He turned his head towards his brothers, flying off with a screech. They never strayed too far from the fleet. “I need an army.”

“We’ll be in Astapor within the next fortnight,” he promised. “Some say the Unsullied are the greatest soldiers in the world.”

She turned from the water, from her children flying above it. “The greatest _slave_ soldiers in the world,” Daenerys pointed out. 

“I don’t see how else we can put you on the Iron Throne.”

She looked out at the ocean again, the way the sky blended into it. “I don’t want to discuss this any longer. Not now. It’s too beautiful a day for it.” 

“You’re right,” Ser Jorah agreed, walking to overlook the dock at the sound of yet another Dothraki warrior vomiting over the edge of the ship. “Another lovely day on the high seas.”

“Don’t mock them,” she chastised. “They’re the first Dothraki who have ever been on a ship. They followed me across the poison water. If they’ll do it, others will, too. When I take back the Iron Throne, I’ll have a true khalasar.”

“The Dothraki follow strength above all, khaleesi,” Ser Jorah reminded her. “You’ll have a true khalasar when you prove yourself strong, and not before.” 

She sighed. “I know.” Yet another topic she didn’t wish to discuss further. Not just yet, anyway.

Turning her head towards one of the Qartheen cabin boys that had been assigned to her ship, she told him to fetch a barrel of dried ginger from the stores down below. When he returned a few minutes later, he was carrying a barrel that was nearly taller than he was, straining with each step.

“Come,” she told the boy, and he craned his neck around the barrel to see which way she was going. The stairs to the deck creaked with each step she took, but they creaked far louder when the boy followed behind her. “Set it down and open it,” she instructed one they reached the base of the stairs. He did as instructed.

“I know that this has been difficult for you,” she said in Dothraki, voice raised so that all could hear her. Several of her people looked up at her from their place at the rail, wiping their mouths as they moved closer to listen. “All of you that feel ill, please come and take a piece of ginger. Suck on it until it is gone. It may help. If you need more, please ask.”

The Dothraki clamored to get to the barrel as quickly as possible. More than a few were too unsteady on their feet to do anything but crawl. She handed a piece of the dried ginger to each of them. When they had all gotten a piece and returned to their previous tasks, she heard Ser Jorah descend the steps behind her.

“How did you know there was ginger in the stores?”

“I asked the captain if they had any,” she told him as he reached her side. A moment passed, and she continued. “Before I was used to being on the water, my brother used to give me ginger whenever we had to sail. Said it would make me feel less sick,” she clasped her hands behind her back, watching the cabin boy take the barrel back to the stores. “He wasn’t always… Like that. He was kinder and gentler, once.”

“What changed?”

She shrugged a shoulder, unclasping her hands and allowing them to rest at her sides. “How people treated us, I suppose. We were thrown out of the house we’d stayed in since I was born, and he had to resort to begging. Eventually, he sold our mother’s crown. He was never the same after that. I think he felt that a true king would never be in a situation where he’d have to sell his mother’s crown. A true king wouldn’t have to beg for food or money, or sleep out in the rain. He became so _angry_ ,” she remembered. 

Ser Jorah nodded once, glancing briefly at her. “The world changes people, turns them harder, harsher.”

“I find myself wishing that it had made him a kinder person,” she said softly.

“Were he a better man, it might’ve. A strong person becomes stronger when faced with adversity. Your brother was incapable of strength,” her friend theorized.

She sighed, and Ser Jorah reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. She knew he was trying to comfort her, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from jerking away. He pulled his hand back, letting it fall to his side.

“Forgive me, khaleesi,” he bowed his head slightly in apology.

“Think nothing of it,” she told him, then turned away swiftly. “I think I’ll retire to my cabin a bit early.”

“Of course."

It wasn’t until she had gotten inside her cabin and locked the door behind her that she realized how badly she had been shaking.

* * *

Over a week later, the small fleet had been blown significantly off course. Winds from the east had blown in almost overnight, and despite the captain’s best efforts, they hadn’t been able to get very far north. Certainly not the northwest that was needed to reach Slaver’s Bay and Astapor.

It was the middle of the night, and Daenerys hadn't slept since the night before. The storm had been raging since mid-afternoon, and the Dothraki had gone below and not a one of them would emerge. Not until the storm had passed, they said. Daenerys insisted that her dragons stay safe, too, down below with her people. Wind howled around her, and lightning stuck water somewhere in the distance.

She was aware that their number of lifeboats was not what it once had been. At least one had been knocked free in the chaos, maybe more. If they needed to escape the ship, there was nowhere for them to go.

“Khaleesi,” Ser Jorah called out as loud as he could, but she could still barely hear him.He said something else she couldn’t make out. He was difficult to see, too; it was difficult to make out anything at all, the rain was so heavy and thick.

The ship creaked and groaned as the waves forced it this way and that. Water had sloshed its way on deck, and although the ship was relatively undamaged, they were ankle-deep in seawater.

Daenerys heard the sailors yelling from their posts; some were pointing, too. She turned, drenched hair sticking to her neck as she did, only to see a wave larger than any of the others coming for the ship.

She fought the urge to run. Where was there to run? Was this to be her end? Was she to die out here at sea? With nothing else to do, she closed her eyes and braced for impact. 

Later, she wouldn’t remember it very well. She wouldn’t remember when the wave hit the ship, or the screams of the sailors as they held on to whatever was in reach. She wouldn’t remember hitting her head on the ship railing as she went overboard, or the desperation with which she swam to the surface, kicking her legs furiously and fighting off her exhaustion.

She would, however, vaguely recall how Ser Jorah screamed for her, and the relief she felt when she was the outline one of the lifeboats near her. She wouldn’t remember swimming to the lifeboat, or climbing in and collapsing.

Many hours later, when she woke up to a light drizzle on her face, gray clouds were overhead. She forced her eyes to focus, her limbs to move so that she could sit up, and she found herself staring out at the ocean.

Only… The sea was smoking. The Smoking Sea. Which would mean…

She turned, slowly. The beach she was on was a large expanse of what looked to be ash rather than sand, and beyond it lay what was, in some respects, a barren wasteland. She was near what once would’ve been a great city. Towers rose high above her, nearly touching the sky. Ruined buildings were crumbling, stones fused together. In some places, the very ground seemed to be burning. And beyond the city were mountains, smoke rising from their peaks and mingling with the gray clouds above.

She’d seen this in drawings, paintings, tapestries. She’d never been here before, but she knew where she was.

She had landed on Old Valyria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooooo dang! I’m hella excited for this arc, man, lemme tell ya. So I said I was gonna talk about the geography a bit, and I totally am. For the most part, we’re sticking to canon geography. However, there is a bit that’s different here. For those of you who have your Known World maps available, instead of the Smoking Sea being just a little piece of water (I say “little piece” like it’s not seven hundred miles long but whatever), the sea surrounding the Valyrian peninsula is considered to be the Smoking Sea. It’s how people know to GTFO. You see the seawater start to smoke? Yeah, GTFO. For our purposes, Old Valyria is not smack dab in the middle of a big island, but rather on the eastern shore of the island, if that makes sense. Daenerys was just outside of the Smoking Sea when she went overboard, and so when the wind blew her lifeboat west, it didn’t take her very long to reach Old Valyria. If you’ve got any other questions, lemme know and I’ll do my best to answer/explain.


	16. Valyria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys explores the homeland of her ancestors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first arc where all of it is going to be without any show content to speak of. I’m going completely off of a combo of book/companion book content and my imagination. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous about it. I desperately want to get it right, and for those of you that are content creators of any kind, you likely know that one is never satisfied with one’s work. I hope I come close to doing my imagination justice.
> 
> Also, for those of you wondering, “WHERE ARE THE STONE MEN?!” well, lemme answer that for you: they’re not here. In this story, they’re where the book has them, which is in the Sorrows, along the Rhoyne. This, of course, is background information that’s common knowledge, which is why Dany is not concerned about that particular thing regarding Old Valyria.

Chapter Sixteen: Valyria

_Catch your reflection in the glass, try and forget just who you really are._ \- Simple Creatures, Strange Love

When she put her feet on the ground and her shoes, dried from the sun, sank into the sand -ash?- she had to grip the side of the boat to keep her balance. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the smell of brimstone and smoke. She hadn’t looked at the ruined city again since the first time. She couldn’t bring herself to.

Daenerys wracked her brain for information on Valyria, flipping through her memories. She knew about the greatness of the Freehold, the majesty of its cities, Valyria in particular. She knew that the Doom had destroyed everything, burning everything for a thousand miles, breaking the land apart.

No one had actually set foot in Valyria and lived to tell the tale. No one that she knew of, anyway. No, that wasn’t entirely true. It had been speculated that some long-dead cousin of hers, a princess called Aerea, had been to Valyria, but that could or could not be true. Daenerys remembered her brother telling her of the girl, of how she’d claimed Aegon the Conqueror’s dragon, Balerion the Dread, but hadn’t been able to control him, and, being the last living being to have seen Valyria before the Doom, that’s where he took her: to his birthplace.

Viserys had said that the girl had been stick thin, starved and unlike her self, with a fever so hot it could be felt through a man’s armor, that the heat from her body cooked her from the inside, smoke coming out of her body, her fever boiling her eyes until they burst. It was said, too, that there was something moving within her body, something trying to get out. She was put in a tub of ice to ease the fever, but instead, the boils on her skin erupted and the creatures within her emerged. 

Worms with faces, Viserys had told her. Snakes with hands. Were the things that came from Aerea’s body nearly two hundred and fifty years ago still there? Was she safe on the beach? No, likely not. There were the remains of a dock maybe a hundred feet from her, and the city itself was built so close to the beach that the edge of it was a couple hundred feet from where Daenerys stood. No. If whatever creatures that crawled inside Aerea still lurked in Valyria, they would come for Daenerys whether or not she was inside the city itself.

Having made a decision, she turned back to the city, the breeze from the sea blowing her hair into her face. Pushing it to the side, she took a step forward, her foot sinking into the black sand. She took another step, and then another, and another. Getting closer to the city, she could see it a bit better. 

Towers loomed overhead, black and crumbling. Between some of the towers, there were long bridges, but none that she’d consider crossing. She could see what might have once been houses and shops, palaces and temples. The architecture was unlike anything she’d ever seen. 

The mountains beyond the city were smoking, their peaks glowing a dull red. Some vegetation had returned, but not much. She felt a gnawing in her gut, but she wasn’t hungry enough yet to eat what little greenery she could find. Even if it had once been edible, those same plants may very well have been turned poisonous after the Doom.

When she first set foot on the stone road, she found it surprisingly sturdy, even four hundred years after the Doom. The stones didn’t move in the slightest when she put her weight on them. A thick layer of ash covered everything, and she left footprints in it wherever she walked. There were no others.

Aside from the occasional weed, there was no life at all. No scurrying rats, no birds flying overhead. Looking up, she wondered what it must have been like centuries ago, with dragons flying overhead. Hundreds of dragons, even, soaring through the sky.

She had scarcely finished the thought when it hit her: the ship. Ser Jorah. The Dothraki. Her children. Her _children_. No. They would’ve cried out for her if they were in distress, wouldn’t they? She supposed they could’ve done before she woke, but their cries in her mind had woken her on more than one occasion. She took comfort in the fact that they, at the very least, must be safe.

She had stopped dead in her fear for her children and people, and when she continued to move forward, she did so slowly. It was difficult to fully comprehend the majesty surrounding her. The city seemed to go on and on, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost picture the bustle it must have once had, the shopkeepers advertising their wares. A gaggle of girls her age sitting together on a fountain she’d passed. She’d always felt alienated with her coloring, with no one to share her name. But here, there would’ve been countless people who resembled her, who called her family.

Suddenly, the ground began to shake. The buildings surrounding her trembled, and she feared they might fall on her. Falling backward onto the stone road, a cloud of ash puffed up around her, and she clutched her hands into fists against the stones, into the ash. It lodged itself beneath her fingernails, and as the ground continued to shake, more ash rose up, filling her nostrils and landing on her eyelashes. 

Smoke didn’t affect her the way it did most people. She never choked or coughed on it. It didn’t bother her. Ash, however, was certainly a bother, and when more found its way inside her mouth, she coughed, her body trying to prevent anything from getting into her lungs. Continuing to cough, she turned herself over onto her hands and knees, crawling slowly to the side of a building. It was shaking still, but she needed to get up and away from the ash before it got into her lungs. 

Jamming her fingers into the crevices between the black stones of the building, she pulled herself up onto her knees. The ground shook still, and more ash rose up, and so she coughed again. She took slow, deliberate breaths, forcing herself to keep them shallow. Moving her fingers into crevices above her head, she pulled herself to her feet, leaning against the wall of the building. When she blinked, bits of ash floated from her eyelashes.

She stood there for several minutes, back against the wall, waiting for the shaking to stop. It finally did, after what felt like an eternity, and she took a careful step forward, not entirely trusting her feet to remain steady. The ash was settling back into place, drifting slowly to the ground once more. When she was sure of her balance, she took another step.

Her stomach growled, and she realized she had to find food soon. Those weeds were starting to look rather appetizing. Still, something told her to press on, and she did. Within a few minutes, she reached a wide set of stairs, leading up to a long road with, from what she could see, a large roof at the end of it.

Ascending the stairs, she found herself standing before a great house. It had two rounded towers on the front corners, high windows, and a large archway made of two dragons, beneath which was a doorway twice her height. The house, like all the other buildings, was made of black stone. Slowly, the grey clouds overhead moved, a tiny bit of sun peeking out. With this newfound light, she saw the large crest above the archway.

It was a three-headed dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo whatcha think? It's not as long as I originally wanted, but I’m excited, and I hope you are too. Btw, Aerea Targaryen was an actual Targaryen princess in canon. She lived from 42 AC (After Conquest) to 56 AC, and died a pretty horrific death (especially for a fourteen-year-old jfc all I wanted at fourteen was for senpai to notice me because I was a piece of garbage). But where are the things that supposedly emerged from her body? Why hasn’t Daenerys seen them? Worry not. These questions (and more!) are to be answered soon.


	17. House Targaryen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys visits the first House Targaryen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that in canon, House Targaryen’s sigil originally came from Aegon and his sisters, thus the three heads. Obviously, in this particular version of the universe, however, the Targaryens have been using the three-headed dragon sigil since their time in Valyria.

Chapter Seventeen: House Targaryen

_Don’t let the magic change us._ \- Simple Creatures, Strange Love

Many years ago, Viserys had explained sigils to Daenerys. He’d told her of the Great Houses of Westeros, at least as he remembered them. There were the Baratheons, of course; Aegon the Conqueror was close friends with the founder of House Baratheon, and many a Baratheon had married into House Targaryen, and vice versa. This, Viserys had said, made Robert Baratheon’s betrayal far worse. From the books Ser Jorah had gifted her, she’d learned that the usurper’s grandmother was a Targaryen herself, making him Daenerys’ cousin. Always be wary of stags, Viserys had warned.

He’d told her, too, of House Lannister’s betrayal, of how Tywin Lannister had sacked King’s Landing after swearing fealty to her father. Lions were dangerous creatures that would attack unprovoked, he’d promised her. House Stark had fought beside Daenerys’ ancestors on many occasions, their direwolf banners fluttering in the wind. The Martells ruled over Dorne with their spear-pieced sun sigil, refusing to submit, not even to dragons. 

House Velaryon with a seahorse and House Celtigar with numerous crabs emblazoned on their banners had ventured to Westeros before House Targaryen, but they were not dragonlords as the Targaryens had been, nor were they as great a House. 

No one was quite sure when the Targaryen sigil was formulated, but it had clearly withstood the test of time. The first buildings in Valyria rose up five thousand years ago. Who knew when House Targaryen was founded? This particular house had not been in use since her ancestors fled Valyria for Dragonstone nearly four hundred years ago. It was impossible to say when it was first founded.

Daenerys gazed up in awe at her family’s sigil, a meticulously carved relief directly above two dragons at least twice her own height, their wings meeting to form the center of the archway. There was a ringing in her ears that seemed to block out all other sound. She could hear, or rather feel, the pounding of her heart, but nothing more. She had been standing before the door to her ancestral home for an indeterminate amount of time, and with each beat of her heart, the ringing in her ears intensified. Something inside of her was telling her, screaming at her, to go inside.

She stepped forward, slowly at first, with great trepidation, but her next step was surer. She could not walk away from this place. Not without venturing inside. She knew as much, deep in her bones. When the door was close enough to touch, she reached out, fingers stretching forth to touch the old wood. Hesitating, she retracted her fingers.

Like mist taking form after a summer rain, a hand, white and translucent, materialized above hers. She should’ve been terrified, she knew. Should’ve turned to see who - _what_ \- was there, whose hand it was, but she didn’t. There was something comforting about the hand, the presence she felt. The presence was nearby, but also within her, and she felt it urging her forward, encouraging her. Closing her eyes, Daenerys touched the door with the tips of her fingers. In that second, the ringing that had been in her ears vanished, and her eyes snapped open in time to see the door opening with a loud creak. 

The presence urged her feet onward, and she listened, stepping over the threshold. The interior was dark, the only light from windows whose glass had long since broken off and been blown away. Illuminated by the dim sunlight, she could see what had once been a grand room. A hearth, bigger than any she’d ever seen, was across the room, on the far wall. There was a chaise with a blanket strewn across it, a table stacked with books. Everything appeared to be covered in ash. 

A great staircase was beside the hearth, and she considered climbing it. The presence, however, surged within her, and she felt something intense and negative at the notion of venturing upstairs. No, she decided. It couldn’t be terribly safe on the second floor. Slowly, so as not to trip, she walked towards a doorway on the other side of the hearth from the staircase. As she approached, she realized there was no door; only darkness.

Somehow, though, Daenerys knew that she needed to pass through this doorway. There was something important, something essential, on the other side. As she walked through, the flickering of a torch started up on the floor, it looked like. Upon closer inspection, though, she discovered that it wasn’t on the floor, but rather a torch in a passageway that led beneath the house. Whatever it was, this essential thing, the passageway would take her to it. She was certain of it.

With the torch as her only light, she had to take small, careful steps, not unlike the ones she’d taken in the previous room. When she reached the top of the narrow stairs, the torch itself came into view. It was attached to the wall of the passageway, and its flames cast a flickering shadow upon the steps, blending in with her own shadow so that it was impossible to tell where she ended and the flames began.

In the corner of the passageway’s opening, there was something shimmering. It was as if the air itself was sparkling. When Daenerys lowered her foot onto that first step, it felt almost as if she was breaking the surface of water, only she was completely dry. As soon as she broke the surface, though, whatever the shimmering was exploded throughout the room in a haze of light that was somehow black. Half a second after that explosion, she felt it shoot through her, and the force of it knocked her onto her backside. 

Her hands were on the cold stone floor, and she felt this force within her body, searching her. It was in her skin, her bones, her veins, her very soul. As it raced through her, she couldn’t seem to remember how to breathe, air refusing to make its way into her lungs. She felt as if there was a hand on her shoulder, and when she turned to look, it was the translucent hand from before. When it touched her, the shimmering force inside her body turned warm and kind, and she was able to breathe again. She inhaled deeply through her nose, but when her lips parted to exhale, she saw the shimmering force leave her, swirling together before returning to the passageway.

Magic, she realized dimly. The dragonlords of Valyria used magic, she knew, but she could only guess as to what the purpose was. Even so, she must continue forward. 

Bracing her hands on the floor, she put her other foot on the first step. Nothing happened. She pushed herself to her feet again and tentatively moved to the second step, toe first. Still, nothing happened. She descended each step like this, and on the fourth, the top of her head was below the passageway opening. She was at eye level with the torch, and below her, there was nothing but darkness.

She took another slow, careful step. Then another, and another. When the light from the torch behind her was no longer of use, another blazed to life. This happened twice before she reached the base of the stairs. When she did, light filled a room that was covered wall-to-wall in books, save for one wall. There were shelves from floor to ceiling, and on them lay something she never thought she’d see again.

More than a hundred, of all colors, more than she’d ever heard of being in one place- dragon eggs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dragon eggs! Did anybody guess that she was gonna find some? I’m so excited, man, you’ve got no idea. Please share your thoughts. Hate it, love it, whatever it is, I wanna hear it!


	18. Eruptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys explores the room beneath her ancestral home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask me about any member of House Targaryen and I can tell you their relationship to any other member of House Targaryen. No, for real, I deadass made a family tree on the Ancestry app. Also, for interested parties, in a very short period of time, I will be twenty-five. My birthday’s May 18th, for the record. Sucks to be stuck at home for it, but whatever. I’ve got my boyfriend and my cats.
> 
> Also, a note about this chapter, and indeed the entire Valyria arc: the Doom, as I’ve said before, was a massive volcanic event where the Thirteen Flames around Valyria erupted simultaneously, causing earthquakes, etc. The reason the city itself survived was actually similar to Pompeii’s survival: it was buried in ash, thus preserving it. The destruction of the Doom was worsened by the Valyrians’ magic becoming uncontrollable, sort of like a whole bunch of magical bombs going off. This resulted in a few different things, the main ones being that the weather around Valyria has something of a mind of its own. The gods that are real in this particular fic are left ambiguous, but there are definitely supernatural spirits at work here. Valyria was something of a hotbed of magical stuff before the Doom, and then when all that magic was released in ways it wasn’t supposed to be, magic became kind of part of the environment itself, even more so than it was before the Doom. Because of this, it’s easier for spirits, or gods, or whatever you want to think of them as (although there are definitely ghosts in Valyria) to control things like the weather. It is for this reason that we see Valyria not having been buried in ash, and why things are so well preserved even after the ash is gone: that magic is still lingering there, and the spirits or gods or whatever are helping it along.

Chapter Eighteen: Eruptions

_I am burning brighter, roaring like a storm, and I am the one I’ve been waiting for._ \- Halestorm, I Am the Fire

The air around her was humming. It had always done that, for as long as she could remember. Viserys had slapped her whenever she mentioned it, and so she did her best to put it from her mind as a child. As she grew, it became easier to ignore the humming. 

In this room, though, it was impossible to ignore it. The humming had amplified, and it she could hardly hear herself think. 

It was strange; time seemed to stop in the room below her ancestral home. She was no longer hungry, although she had not eaten. She wasn’t thirsty, either, and she’d been walking for hours. The room itself had been untouched for hundreds of years, and yet it was spotless. There was no dust anywhere, and the torches that had ignited when she stepped into it burned brightly. It was nothing like the rest of the house.

It was probably some form of magic, she surmised. What else could have preserved it so perfectly? Even so, she’d never heard of magic that strong. No one was entirely sure what the Doom had been, but how could one room have escaped it, much less books and dragon eggs.

The very idea that dragon eggs still existed in the world seemed ridiculous to Daenerys. She’d known there were at least three until her children hatched, of course, but for there to be so many- how was it possible? 

The presence pushed her forward somehow, although it was by no means a rough push.

_Not now_ , the presence seemed to say. 

She noticed a small writing desk and chair in the corner of the room, intricately carved and painstakingly decorated. There were a number of books already resting on it, one laying open at the edge of the desk, next to an unlit candle. The desk, the books -the open one in particular- on it, they seemed to be glowing. Daenerys knew they weren’t actually glowing, but she felt a need to examine them, to read them.

They spoke and wrote in High Valyrian in the Freehold; she should be able to read the books perfectly well, provided they didn’t fall apart at her touch. But they shouldn’t, if everything in the room was as well-preserved as it appeared.

There was a gust of wind that swirled in from the stairwell. Something in it shimmered, the same shimmer of the dark force that had entered her body had possessed, and it swirled past Daenerys, through the room and around the desk, rustling the pages of the open book. She knew with absolute certainty that she must read it. Something in her insisted upon it.

She took tentative steps towards the desk, worried that there might be some sort of magic that could harm her, but there was nothing she could sense. She reached the desk, and on instinct, reached out and brushed her fingertips against the candle, only to jerk them back in surprise when it lit itself abruptly, just as the torches had done. It was far brighter than any candle its size ought to have been. She could easily see the spidery words written in the open book. It was open to the first page. Pulling the chair out, she sat down and began to read.

_My name is Daenys Targaryen._

Daenerys had read of Daenys Targaryen in the books Ser Jorah had given her. Daenys the Dreamer, she was called, for the prophetic dragon dreams she regularly had. Her dreams were the reason House Targaryen had moved to Dragonstone twelve years before the Doom. Remembering her studies of the Targaryen lineage, she knew that Daenys Targaryen was her direct ancestor.

_I know that you are reading this many years from now, unless my visions are wrong, which they never are. First, I shall tell you a bit about myself. I am the daughter of Aenar Targaryen and one of his wives, Elaena Targaryen. I am nearly sixteen. I am likely to wed my brother, Gaemon, not long after we arrive at Dragonstone. He is not yet twenty. He will be a good husband to me, I think; he has promised not to take any other wives. Father has permitted us both time to study before marrying, for which I am grateful, as I dearly love to read._

_I am writing this because I know that there are things you must learn, and you will not learn them if I do not write about them. This is my private study, inherited from my grandfather. I am allowed it and Gaemon is not because I possess abilities that he does not. Dragon dreams are one of those abilities, but there are others that I will tell you about._

Abilities? Daenerys was terribly curious about these abilities, but something told her not to skip ahead in the book. She didn’t know if she was the person that Daenys meant this book for, but she may well be. She read on.

_There are a number of books here that you may find useful, but the ones on this desk are the ones I know you will need. This is the only one written by myself. The titles that are essential to you include:_ Valyrian Steel: Crafting and Use _;_ Hatching and Raising Dragons _;_ Dragonriding Techniques _;_ Basic Blood Magic _; and_ Harnessing Fire Magic _. You will find these useful for a variety of reasons, and will achieve many things with their help._

_I shall tell you about my personal experiences and related dragon dreams, because I know that they will help you._

_Firstly, you must know that under no circumstances are you to enter other rooms like this one. There are many of them in the homes of other noble families, and they are not safe for you to enter. If you so much as near the stairwell leading down to them, you will find yourself attacked and infested with blood magic of the worst kind, and it will kill you. I’m sure that you will not have attempted to go inside one yet, and that must remain the case. This sort of magic is intended to allow inside only those of the family it was built for. No one else can cross the magic’s threshold safely._

_Second, I have gathered from my dreams that magic is not as prolific in your time as in mine. I know that you will have the only dragons left in the world, and I know that you will have magical abilities that are no longer commonplace. I know, too, that you must learn to use your abilities. It is essential._

The abilities again. What could Daenys be talking about?

_I expect that, with the passage of time, certain things will no longer be seen as fact. From what I know of your world and its relationship with magic, it’s unlikely you know much of Valyrian magic, or magic relating specifically to House Targaryen._

_You have likely already noticed that you are able to communicate with your dragons in ways other people cannot. This is a common Targaryen trait. Once dragons grow large enough, it is possible to ride them._ Dragonriding Techniques _goes into detail about how best to begin._

_The most important thing for you to learn, however, is how to control your own magic._ Harnessing Fire Magic _will explain much of it to you, but I know you are almost certainly in the dark about your magic’s existence. Communication with dragons is only one of the magical traits Targaryens sometimes have. Another rarer trait is the ability to wield fire magic._

_Since I was very small, I have been able to control fire. I can not only control the fire around me, but make flames come from my hands, or even breathe it out if I wish. These abilities are not unique to House Targaryen; other noble Houses in Valyria have them, as well, but as I understand it, this will not be the case for much longer. Fire magic means that you are able to stand within a blazing fire and remain unharmed. This sort of magic cannot be learned. It must be in your blood. Some Targaryens have the ability to withstand fire, but are not fire mages themselves._

_I have more to tell you, but that is everything of immediate importance. Read whatever you desire. If you wish to practice your abilities, worry not; the room has been spelled with fire mages in mind._

Daenys’ foresight had been remarkable. It was no wonder the girl’s father had listened to her dreams and heeded them. Even so, _fire magic_? How was it possible? But then, did fire not respond to her thoughts, her feelings? How many times had candles lit when she desired it? She had walked through flames, slept in them, even, and she had never so much as flinched.

Reaching for the book with _Harnessing Fire Magic_ embossed on the spine, Daenerys opened it and began to read.

* * *

Perhaps an hour had passed, and Daenerys had learned much about her supposed abilities. All that was left was to attempt to use them. Standing slowly, she lifted her hands over her head and locked them together, pulling on each arm to stretch the muscles. She rolled her neck and heard it crack. Pushing her hair from her eyes, she turned to face the rest of the room.

And then her knees gave out and she fell back against the chair.

There was a girl standing before her, only… The girl was a translucent, glowing white. Daenerys could see the dragon eggs directly behind her.

_The presence,_ Daenerys realized. The hand on her shoulder, the voice in her mind- it had been this girl. How had she not thought to turn around before? How had she not thought to look behind her? How had she forgotten about the presence to begin with?

Grasping the chair, Daenerys pushed herself up onto shaking, unsteady feet. Looking the girl in the face, something clicked her mind.

“Daenys?” Daenerys whispered.

The girl smiled, nodding.

“How- how are you here? You’re not… I mean, you can’t be _alive_ , can you?” Daenerys asked in High Valyrian.

“ **No,** ” said Daenys. When she spoke, it reverberated throughout Daenerys’ body, and although she could see the girl’s lips moving, it was almost as if she was speaking in Daenerys’ mind rather than aloud.

“ **I am dead. My ashes are at Dragonstone,** ” she said.

“Then how are you speaking to me?” Daenerys was still reeling. Her ancestor was in front of her. She was _right there_.

“ **I honestly don't know. Sometimes I’m not in this world, and sometimes I am. I am unable to control it. Regardless, it’s good to speak to another person in this world after so long.** ” Daenerys blinked at that. She couldn’t imagine existing for hundreds of years without anyone to talk to. She was still lost in thought when Daenys interjected. “ **I’m sure this is odd, but I believe I can help you.** ”

“Help me?”

“ **Yes. I had decades of experience with fire magic before I died. I can’t use it now, but perhaps I can coach you,** ” Daenys suggested.

“Oh, um- alright, that would be helpful, I think,” Daenerys agreed with a slight nod. Her head was still spinning. There was a great deal happening all at once. “First, though, may I ask you some questions?” At her ancestor’s nod, Daenerys continued. “So you’re my-“

“ **Many times great-grandmother, I think,** ” Daenys finished for her. “ **I was quite old when I died, but I seem to have the body and mind of my first few years of marriage,** ” she said, looking down at herself.

“How… Strange…”

Daenys nodded again. “ **It is,** ” she agreed. “ **I possess the memories of an old woman in a young woman’s mind.** ”

“Daenys, if I may ask, I believe you did marry Gaemon,” -Daenys nodded for her to continue- “I hope that he was… Kind to you,” Daenerys finished lamely.

Understanding her meaning, Daenys smiled slightly. “ **Ah, yes. You’re thinking of my writings. Yes, Gaemon was always kind to me, and he did keep his promise to take no other wives. He was a good husband. I loved him very much.** ”

Daenerys was pleased to hear this. She’d had many ancestors that were not so kind. It was good to know that this was not the case with all of them.

Daenys clasped her hands behind her back. “ **I will teach you, but I want something in return.** ”

Daenerys blinked in surprise. She had not expected her ancestor to want something from her. “What is it?”

“ **I only seem to appear here and on Dragonstone. Whenever you are on Dragonstone, will you visit the crypt? I may be able to speak to you again,** ” Daenys said.

Relieved it was something that was feasible, Daenerys smiled. “Of course. I don’t know when I will be able to return to Dragonstone, but I will visit the crypt there,” she promised.

Nodding, Daenys held out her hand, palm up. “ **Hold your hand out like this and close your eyes.** ” When Daenerys obeyed, she went on. “ **There is magic all around you. You should be able to feel it always, and you probably try to force it from your mind. Don’t. Focus on it. Let it consume you.** ”

Daenerys listened to the humming in the air, and she could’ve sworn that with each intake of breath, the magic filled her lungs.

_Let it consume you_ , Daenys had said. And then, suddenly, it did.

It felt real. Solid. More so than anything she’d ever felt before, had ever dreamed she was capable of feeling before. It was as if everything else was a phantom, a mirage, nothing but a figment of her imagination. The only thing that was real, that had _ever_ been real, was the way she felt fire in the air around her, even when there wasn’t any burning.

She could feel it thrumming, buzzing, all around her, in the core of her being. It was then that she realized that the fire in the air, the vibrations she could feel from it- they had always been there, her entire life, and before it, too.

It wasn’t that the fire didn’t exist all around her, she was beginning to understand. It was that she had merely neglected to pull it into being. Her skin tingled with it, her fingertips especially. It was as if the fire _wanted_ to be given form. All she had to do was let it out.

When Daenerys opened her eyes, she saw a flame burning brightly in the center of her palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s right, ghosts exist in this fic! I’m not sure about the afterlife situation here, but because I’m a sucker for a happy ending even in death, I figure Daenys (and any other ghosts in this universe) just flit back and forth between the world and the afterlife, sometimes for a reason and sometimes at random. They can speak, but only to people with whom they share blood. They can’t touch anything or anyone, though. That’s what I’m going with for ghosts here. And yes, Daenerys is a fire mage! Some of you may have already guessed this, but she totally is. Lemme know what you think.


	19. Book Learning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magic, as it turns out, is a skill that must be learned, even for those it comes naturally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back on Tumblr for reasons. Username’s imnotoverlyobsessive. Come say hi, I don’t talk to anyone except my boyfriend and our cats and it gets hella lonely. Also nobody in my life is as excited about Game of Thrones and/or Daenerys Targaryen as I am and I need to talk to somebody about it. So yeah.
> 
> Also, if anyone is reading this and thinking, “is she drawing inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender?” then, uh, yes. 100%. I’ve been watching that show since I was ten years old, and it is deeply ingrained in my mind and has greatly influenced my understanding of story progression, character development, and fighting dynamics. Those of you who are familiar with the show (if you’re not, you need to be. It’s on Netflix now, so do yourself a favor and go binge it) will definitely see similarities between Daenerys’ abilities and firebending.

Chapter Nineteen: Book Learning

_I can feel a phoenix inside of me as I march alone to a different beat, slowly swallowing down my fear. I am ready for the road less traveled, suiting up for my crowing battle._ \- Katy Perry, Who Am I Living For?

Daenerys had a decent understanding of how to engage with someone in hand-to-hand combat. She understood how to fight with a sword, and even an arakh. Learning how to implement fire into those methods of battle, however, was not something with which she was acquainted.

Daenys, on the other hand, knew the techniques well. She couldn’t show Daenerys, nor could she spar with her properly; the girl’s hand passed right through her if they attempted to touch one another. Still, Daenerys could mimic Daenys’ stances and movements better than she could the drawings and diagrams in _Harnessing Fire Magic._

Once she knew she was capable of creating and controlling fire, it seemed as natural as breathing. She still had to think about it, but flames erupted from her fingertips without much effort, and she’d managed to throw a ball of fire that would’ve hit Daenys if her ancestor had been corporeal.

What she was having difficulty with, however, was maintaining a decently sized constant flame.

“ **Try again,** ” Daenys said.

Daenerys planted her feet firmly on the ground in a position she knew would make it difficult for someone to knock her down. She closed her eyes and inhaled. Focusing solely on her breathing, she took in as much air as her lungs would hold, and then expelled it all through her nose. As she breathed, she listened to her heartbeat regulate, heard it thumping in her chest. 

Somewhere near her heart, it burned. Not the unpleasant sort of burning she’d felt when she lost Rhaego. No, this burning was like fire always was to her: comforting and warm. 

_The fire is within me_ , she reminded herself. _It’s in the air. I only need to pull it into being_.

Breathing deeply again, Daenerys focused on the burning near her heart. She imagined herself reaching inside her body and pulling it out. On her next exhale, she thrust her hand forward, palm out. Opening her eyes, she saw a stream of flames shoot from her palm.

“ **Hold it as long as you can** ,” Daenys’ voice reverberated through Daenerys, and she flexed her fingers, trying to keep the fire from going out.

She was able to keep it alive much longer than she’d been able to before, perhaps fifteen seconds longer, but she eventually lost focus.

“ **Better** ,” Daenys praised, but Daenerys let her hand drop to her side. She was worried she’d never be able to control it enough for an actual fight.

“ **It takes time** ,” her ancestor told her. “ **Eventually, it will become instinctive. Muscle memory. You won’t have to think about it**.”

“When?”

“ **How long did it take you to learn to fight with a sword, or with your hands? It wasn’t immediate. It takes time. Be patient**.” At that, Daenerys turned to look at the girl. Her face was kind, a small smile playing on her lips. She was trying to be encouraging, Daenerys knew. 

Sighing, she pushed her hair from her eyes. “ **I know. It’s just frustrating**.”

“ **I understand, but you’ll get better faster than most. It comes naturally to you. It takes many people half their lives to get their magic to the strength yours is at already** ,” Daenys said.

Daenerys shifted her feet. “Really? No one I have ever known has had magical abilities, so it’s not something you really hear about.”

Daenys nodded. “ **Yes, magic is almost dead in this time, it would seem. Although** …” she turned her glowing eyes towards the dragon eggs behind her. “ **I think it’s meant to come back**.”

Daenerys followed her gaze. “I’ll need to hatch them, won’t I?”

“ **Yes**.”

“How? My great-grandfather, Aegon V, he tried to hatch dragon eggs, but something went wrong and people were burned alive as a result. I don’t know what I did that allowed my children to be born, so how can I do it again?” Daenerys asked.

Daenys tilted her head to the side in thought, her translucent hair falling in front of her face. After several long moments, she spoke. “ **All the dragons I saw hatch in my lifetime were born within a blazing fire. I’ve never seen a dragon hatch without a fire mage controlling the flames. The books will tell you more, I’m sure, but I think that your dragons hatched because you were there with them**.”

Nodding, Daenerys said, “I’ll read more about it. I’m sure they’ll give detailed instructions.” At Daenys’ nodded response, Daenerys smiled. “Shall I try again?”

* * *

Daenerys wasn’t sure how long she’d been in the room beneath the old Targaryen house. It was hard to tell; her body’s needs ceased within its walls. It must have been some time, though, because she had gotten significantly better. Muscle memory was beginning to kick in, and she could maintain a flame for much longer. 

As part of her training, Daenys had had her maintain a conversation while keeping a fire alive in each hand. The first several times, the flames had gone out as soon as Daenerys stopped thinking about them. Eventually, though, she was able to move them to the back of her mind, and after a few attempts, they continued to burn without her thinking about them at all.

Sometimes, while they conversed, Daenys would attempt to strike Daenerys without warning (of course, she wasn’t able to _actually_ strike, but, as she put it, it was about teaching Daenerys reflexes more than anything else), and after awhile, Daenerys didn’t just block her blows with her arms and legs, but with the fire she held.

Daenys told her of Valyria, of what it had once been. She spoke of her family, of the children she’d had, and of the dragons she’d known. All the while, Daenerys kept the fire in her hands.

It was during one of these conversations that Daenerys heard a screeching from outside.

There was another screech, and then a shouted, “Khaleesi!”

Daenerys whipped her head towards the stairwell, quickly getting to her feet.

“ **Ser Jorah**?” Daenys questioned, having been told of the knight.

“It would seem so. I don’t know how he found-“ something cut off her words, a voice in her mind. No, three voices. Three she knew and loved so well.

_Mother_. There was the screeching again.

“ **It wasn’t him** ,” Daenys said. “ **It was your dragons**.”

Daenerys started up the stairs, heading towards the shouting. Daenys followed close behind, walking with her feet several inches from the floor.

“ **It was good to speak to someone again, but it was wonderful to speak to my own descendant.** ” Daenerys turned around, halfway up the stairs. She looked down at her ancestor, a couple steps below her. “ **You have been found, my friend. We must now part ways**.”

“I hate to leave you here all alone, but…” Daenerys trailed off.

Daenys smiled. “ **I’m only alone in this world, not in the next.** ”

Relieved, Daenerys nodded and turned back around, practically flying up the stairs. She raced through the grand room, reaching the door beneath the dragon archway. There was a translucent hand on her shoulder again, and Daenerys looked over her shoulder.

“ **We will meet again, Daenerys**.”

Daenerys smiled at the girl, and then opened the door, stepping out into the sunlight.

“Ser Jorah!” She called out.

“Khaleesi!” Was the answering yell, quickly followed by a screeching from high above. Looking up, she fixed her gaze on three silhouettes zooming towards her.

Her children had grown slightly, she noted as they landed at her feet. They nuzzled her affectionately, and she scratched underneath their chins.

“I have missed you, my darlings,” she whispered.

“Khaleesi,” Ser Jorah rounded a corner, panting. He bounded towards her. “I’m relieved to see you well.”

“And I you,” she smiled, one hand stroking Rhaegal’s head. “How many did we lose in the storm?”

“The storm dissipated not long after you floated away, Khaleesi,” he told her. “We lost none, though a couple of ships did sustain minor damage. Nothing we weren’t able to repair at sea, however.”

Daenerys nodded, pleased at the news. “And how long has it been since the storm?”

He looked down at her, clearly confused. He didn’t question her, of course. “A little less than a week. We might never have found you if it hadn’t been for your dragons.”

“No?” She raised an eyebrow at him. He opened his mouth to speak again, but at that moment, a couple of Dothraki warriors bounded around the corner.

“Khaleesi!” One of the men exclaimed.

“The dragons,” the other said. “They forced the captain to steer us here! Screamed at him until he complied!”

She turned to her children. “Did you?”

They didn’t look the least bit guilty.

Sighing, she lifted her gaze to the knight. “How many men did you bring with you, Ser Jorah?”

He blinked. “A dozen Dothraki, Khaleesi.”

“Good. We’ll need a great many empty crates,” she informed him.

“Crates?” He questioned.

“Indeed,” she said with a nod. “I have found some new cargo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go! God, I have trouble with fleshing out chapters. Why do I suck so much at that? Oh well. I’m doing my best. Sorry my best isn’t all that great. I hope you got some enjoyment out of this one nonetheless.


	20. The Red City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys arrives in Astapor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In light of recent events, I would like to proclaim my support of the black lives matter movement. To every person who has ever experienced injustice, prejudice, or pain because of their race or a loved one’s race: I see you. I hear you. I stand with you. 
> 
> Regarding the fic itself, we’re getting relatively back on track with canon now. As always, there will be major differences, but I do so love the plot of season three. I am now part of a Daenerys discord. If you’re interested in joining, contact me on tumblr. Name’s imnotoverlyobsessive.

Chapter Twenty: The Red City

_Do you think I have forgotten how it feels to be afraid?_ \- Daenerys to Barriston Selmy, A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin

Daenys was gone when Daenerys stepped back into the house, carrying a tower of crates. She’d refused to allow any of her people to assist her. She suspected it was probably safe for them to be inside the house itself, but didn’t want to risk it. Instead, they handed her the crates at the door so that she could bring them down and carefully pack the books in. 

She selected a few to read on the way to Astapor, packing them into one crate and instructing it be brought to her cabin and loaded it onto the bookshelf there. She ended up taking the entire library with her. How could she not? Who knew when she’d return to Valyria? If there were any other books in the world that contained what they did, she certainly didn’t know of them. She was by no means going to take the chance. Yes, Daenys had said she’d only _need_ a select few, but she could surely learn a great deal from the others, as well.

The books were much easier to bring up than the dragon eggs. One dragon egg was worth perhaps three books in weight, and so she could only bring up a crate of a few at once. With how many there were, this took a great deal of time. It was worth it, though; in the end, she had crates and crates of books from Old Valyria and a hundred and three dragon eggs (she had counted).

She wondered if Daenys would’ve laughed to see her straining her way up the stairs for the sake of a small library. Almost certainly, Daenerys decided. 

Several hours later, she found herself back on the ship. After leaving the room below her ancestral home, her hunger and thirst had returned full force. She had a large pitcher of water brought into her cabin, and the cook had made a stew that was very filling. She ate two and a half servings, and had to call for a second pitcher of water. 

After eating, she had asked for a tub filled with water be brought into her cabin. She refused their offer of boiling the water first. Standing outside her cabin door, she watched the cabin boy leave after pouring the water, Ser Jorah by her side.

The moon was high above them now, and the night was cold. She wanted to get inside and warm her bath up quickly, but she knew that telling her advisor and friend about her newly discovered abilities was essential.

“Ser Jorah, come. I have something you must see.” She turned and walked away from him, moving to stand by the tub, floorboards creaking beneath her sandals. She heard Ser Jorah make something of a choking sound behind her, and turned to see him looking as if he were going to faint. He very clearly thought she was going to get in the bath in front of him. She fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“Come in and close the door,” she commanded. Seeming to get ahold of himself, his limbs snapped into movement, and he strode over to her, his steps awkward and halted. “You are not to scream or make too much noise. You will not be harmed, and neither will I, but I do not wish to alert the others just yet, and so you must keep quiet. Is that clear?”

At his mute nod, she held out her hand over the tub, palm up for him to see. She closed her hand into a fist, and then exhaled. When she opened her hand, a small flame rose up from the center, and Ser Jorah jumped back reflexively.

“F-f-” He sputtered.

“Yes,” she agreed before he could finish. “I am a fire mage. It’s a Targaryen trait, it would seem.”

He was silent for a moment, staring at the little flame with wide eyes. “Fire mage?”

She nodded. “I can control fire, and I can create it.” She turned her gaze to the brazier near her bed, and the coals in it ignited briefly before turning to a dull glow. He looked at her in wonderment, clearly bewildered at her abilities.

“Does it hurt you?” He wondered.

“No,” she shook her head. “Fire does not hurt me, and neither does heat. She thrust her hand into the tub then, allowing the flame in her palm to extend beyond her fingertips. Even underwater, she was able to keep it burning. It looked strange; the flames flickered and the water rippled, the light playing on both. 

Perhaps a minute later, the water began to boil lightly. With a satisfied nod, she removed her hand and straightened herself up. Shaking droplets of water off her arm, she turned to Ser Jorah.

“I felt you should know as soon as possible. I will be studying to fight using fire magic, and tomorrow, we can discuss how to inform the others. For now, though, I need rest.”

“Khaleesi, I…” He trailed off.

“I realize you must have a great many questions, Ser Jorah. If you like, you may write them down and I will answer them for you later. But not now. Goodnight,” smiling at him kindly, she led him to the door. He walked out, turning to stare at her. He was still staring at her when she closed it, and it was several minutes before she heard his retreating footsteps.

The bath was so hot she wondered if she could get clean from heat alone. Still, she scrubbed her scalp and beneath her fingernails. Her skin, too, was scrubbed raw. Before emerging from the bath, she raked a wide-tooth comb through her tangled hair. Her bathwater had cooled and she’d had to reheat it a couple of times.

She called the water to be taken away, the dirt and scented oils swishing as the cabin boys carried it out. It wasn’t until Daenerys lay down and rested her head on the pillow that she realized how exhausted she was. She knew that she’d slept in the boat, but it hadn’t really _felt_ like sleep. Her back had ached terribly from the splintered wood, and her neck was sore, too. The warm blankets and soft sheets felt like they had been crafted by the gods themselves. When she slept, she slept far longer than normal, and far deeper.

* * *

Daenerys had considered telling her people about her abilities before it became necessary. She decided against it, though. Words and a brief demonstration didn’t inspire devotion. Not in the same way seeing it in battle would, and she needed to inspire a great deal of devotion in her people. They loved her already, and they loved her dragons, but she needed loyalty. She needed people to be in awe of her, or they wouldn’t follow her. Not for long, anyhow.

It felt strange, to plan to make others revere her. It was necessary, though. She knew that. She was the Mother of Dragons, and she showed her people compassion, but compassionate rulers came and went. She needed to be more than that, and so she would become more than that.

The sun was rising behind Astapor when Daenerys’ ships neared port, and its towers seemed to glow from the light. The buildings looked as if the sun had set them ablaze. She wondered if she would set the city ablaze, too. She hoped not. She didn’t want to. There were slaves, there, she knew. She’d burn Astapor to ashes in order to set them free. But she didn’t want to.

* * *

Kraznys mo Nakloz was far from the only slave owner in the city, but he was the owner of the Unsullied, and therefore, he was the only one she was interested in speaking to. She would do what she could for the other slaves, of course, but the Unsullied were an absolute necessity for the war she would wage one day. 

Her children had grown more than she’d expected in the fortnight it had taken them to sail from Valyria to Astapor, and with each passing day, she was reminded that they would be adults in a few short years, and then she could ride them, just as Daenys had said she would. She decided she would need to hatch the eggs as soon as possible, as well. She only a safe place for it, for them. Once she had the Unsullied, perhaps she could.

Nonetheless, she found herself walking next to the slaver. He was a thin man; thinner than she would expect of someone who lived a life of excess and luxury while doing little to no physical labor. She herself had spent so much of her life running that her legs were muscled and her arms were stronger than those of most women of high birth. She’d been born a princess, but she hadn’t lived like one.

The day was hot, and Kraznys was sweating freely. He only spoke a bastardized version of High Valyrian, and so a slave girl, perhaps Daenerys’ age, who had introduced herself as his translator, trailed behind them. Behind her walked Ser Jorah in full plate.

Daenerys feigned ignorance of High Valyrian, despite it having been the only language Viserys spoke to her for many years. Kraznys spoke freely, as she had known he would, since he thought she could not understand him. He didn’t seem to care that she was the Mother of Dragons, or the heir to the Iron Throne. His words were not only disrespectful, but perhaps the crudest she had ever heard in reference to her. His translator, however, worded things far politer than he.

“The Unsullied have stood here for a day and a night with no food or water,” the girl told Daenerys as the four neared the Unsullied barracks. They stood guard, unmoving. They were like statues, almost as if they themselves were made of the very same brick their feet were planted on. “They will stand until they drop,” the girl continued. “Such is their obedience.”

The Unsullied parted to form a path for their master and Daenerys, their movements abrupt and unified. “They may suit my needs. Tell me of their training.”

“The Westerosi woman is pleased with them, but speaks no praise to keep the price down. She wishes to know how they are trained,” the girl told her master. Daenerys noted that not only was her Common Tongue unaccented and perfect, but her High Valyrian was, too. Whoever had taught her both must have been a been a native speaker themselves.

“Tell her what she would know and be quick about it. The day is hot,” Kraznys complained. It was hot, that was true. Daenerys was probably the only person present who wasn’t sweating profusely. 

The slaver led them up onto a platform so that they could better see the Unsullied as a group. They _were_ a group, she observed. Whatever it was that made people individuals, it had been taken from them long ago.

“They begin their training at five,” the translator began. “Every day, they drill from dawn to dusk until they have mastered the shortsword, the shield, and the three spears. Only one boy in four survives this rigorous training.”

Kraznys looked at Daenerys when he spoke. She pretended not to understand him, and waited patiently for the translation. “Their discipline and loyalty are absolute. They fear nothing.”

It was then that Ser Jorah chose to speak for the first time since they had been introduced to Kraznys. “Even the bravest men fear death.”

“The knight says even brave men fear death,” the slave girl translated for her master.

“Tell the old man he smells of piss,” were Kraznys’ brash words.

His translator hesitated. “Truly, master?”

She had barely finished speaking before he snapped back at her. “No, not truly. Are you a girl or a goat to ask such a thing? The Unsullied are not men. Death means nothing to them.” 

The girl did not translate his insults, only informing Daenerys of the last two sentences Kraznys spoke.

Daenerys could see that he was watching her out of the corner of her eye. “Tell this ignorant whore of a Westerner to open her eyes and watch.”

He descended the steps of the platform, his elegant robes flapping in the sea breeze. “He begs you attend this carefully, Your Grace,” the slave girl told Daenerys, stepping closer to her.

“Come forward, soldier,” Kraznys ordered one of the Unsullied, who stepped forward with his stiff, rigid movements. When his master moved his shield and spear to the side, the soldier did not react. When Kraznys took a knife that was strapped to the man’s side and unsheathed it, he still did not react. Kraznys removed a flap of leather off the soldier’s chest, and still, he did not react.

Worried for the man’s safety, Daenerys spoke to the translator, her words rushed. “Tell the good master there is no need.”

Kraznys must have recognized her tone for what it was, for as he grasped the man’s nipple, he said, “she’s worried about their nipples?” He dug the knife underneath the nipple. The soldier didn’t so much as flinch. “Does the dumb bitch know we’ve cut off their balls?”

There was a sound that made Daenerys’ stomach feel sick as the nipple was ripped off, blood dripping steadily from the wound.

“My master points out that men don’t need nipples,” the slave girl informed Daenerys, who turned to look at her. She was a lovely girl; brown skin, similar to that of the Unsullied, with wide brown eyes and a great mane of black hair that spread out around her head even more so than Daenerys’ did. She wore the collar that all slaves did, and Daenerys wondered if the girl had been made to wear the dress that showed so much of her breasts and thighs, or if she’d chosen it herself. She suspected she knew the answer.

Kraznys refastened the leather flap over the man’s bleeding nipple. “Here, I’m done with you.”

“This one is pleased to have served you,” the soldier responded in a voice as rigid as his movements he made when he stepped back into line.

Kraznys turned back to platform on which Daenerys stood, and the slave girl translated as he spoke. “To win his shield, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts with a silver mark, find a newborn and kill it before its mother’s eyes.” Daenerys felt a rush of pain from her heart that dropped down to her stomach, and images of blood on her hands, of the delirious state in which she’d delivered her dead child, flashed behind her eyelids as she blinked.

She knew the pain the mothers had been put through, by each and every one of these men, at the order of their master. She knew it on a deep, personal level, and she found herself trapped somewhere between heartbroken and furious.

“This way, my master says,” the translator continued, “we make certain there is no weakness left in them.”

Finally, Daenerys spoke. She was careful not to let her anger shine through in her tone more than necessary. “You take a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her pain with a silver coin?”

“She is offended,” the girl informed her master. “She asks if you pay a silver coin to the mother, for her dead baby.”

Kraznys looked from the girl to Daenerys, amusement crossing his features. “What a soft, mewling fool this one is. Tell her the silver is for the baby’s owner, _not_ the mother.”

Furious as she was at his response, she was fairly certain that she had managed well enough in her efforts not to give away her understanding of his words, patiently waiting for the girl to complete her translation.

When Daenerys turned to look down at Kraznys again, he had a small, smug smile on his face. A bird shrieked nearby. After a moment, she asked, “how many do you have to sell?”

The slave girl repeated Daenerys’ question. Kraznys held up eight of his fingers. “Eight thousand,” the girl confirmed.

“Tell the Westerosi whore she has until tomorrow.”

“Master Kraznys asks that you please hurry. Many other buyers are interested.”

Kraznys walked away from the platform then, the Unsullied parting to form a path for him once more. Daenerys turned her gaze on Ser Jorah, letting her emotions show through in her eyes.

Approaching the docks several minutes later, she allowed herself to speak of her feelings. “Eight _thousand_ dead babies.”

“The Unsullied are a means to an end,” Ser Jorah reminded her.

“Once I own them, these men-”

“They’re not men,” he cut her off. “Not anymore.”

“One I own an army of slaves,” she continued, “what will I be?”

They reached the docks, coming to a stop at a set of stairs. There were slaves and masters alike walking past. “Do you think these slaves will have better lives serving Kraznys and men like him or serving you?” Daenerys noticed a small girl, no older than eight, playing with a ball, gazing at her. They walked down the stairs, and Daenerys smiled at the girl, who was weaving around cages. “You’ll be fair to them. You won’t mutilate them to make a point.”

Smiling at the girl again, Daenerys followed her with Ser Jorah at her side. “You won’t order them to murder babies. You’ll see they’re properly fed and sheltered. A great injustice has been done to them. Closing your eyes will not undo it.”

The girl had stopped, and she rolled the ball to Daenerys across the floorboards. Bending down to pick it up, she grasped the wooden ball in her hand. She stood and looked at the girl again, a small smile playing on her lips. The girl motioned for her to open it, and foolishly, Daenerys moved to do so with a chuckle. Before she could twist her wrist to open it, there was a scuffle behind her, something that knocked her away and she lost her balance, the ball falling from her hand. She heard a grunt that she recognized as Ser Jorah’s, and the world seemed to slow down as she hurtled towards the ground. She caught herself on her hands, and they burned from the impact.

The ball opened slowly, a creature she recognized as a manticore slowly chittering and crawling out. It was an eerily beautiful jade green that it seemed almost to glow, and its spindly legs reminded her of a spider. It had a great stinger that it raised when it caught sight of her, poised to attack. She pushed herself back on her hands as it rushed at her, knowing there was almost certainly nothing she could do to prevent her death.

Suddenly, a dagger was thrust into the creature’s body, and Daenerys took great effort to keep herself from shaking, standing slowly and taking deep breaths. A man in a cloak lifted the manticore up as it squirmed, trying to escape the dagger, and the little girl hissed through her teeth, jumping into the water. There was no splash.

Behind her, Ser Jorah panted, worn out from what Daenerys assumed had been a fight with the hooded figure. Slowly, Ser Jorah came and allowed her to lean on his arm. Having a very deadly creature attempt to kill you left one quite shaken, as it turned out.

Daenerys turned to Ser Jorah. “What was she?”

“I… I think she was a Faceless Man, Khaleesi.” Daenerys had heard of the Faceless Men; assassins with strange, magical abilities.

“Joffrey?” She wondered. Ser Jorah nodded with a sigh.

Daenerys walked towards the hooded figure. He was an older man, with a short, white beard. “I owe you my life, ser.”

“The honor is mine, my queen,” he told her, lowering his hood. Daenerys didn’t recognize the man, but Ser Jorah very clearly did, for he moved to stand beside her with slow, careful steps.

“You know this man?” She asked him, her voice soft.

“I know him,” Ser Jorah confirmed, “as one of the greatest fighters the Seven Kingdoms has ever seen, and as the Lord Commander of Robert Baratheon’s Kingsguard.” 

He had served the Usurper? How could she trust him? But then, he’d saved her life. If he had wanted her dead, it would have been as simple as watching the manticore kill her.

“King Robert is dead,” the man said, stepping towards her. “I’ve been searching for you, Daenerys Stormborn, to ask your forgiveness.” When she looked at him questioningly, he went on. “I was sworn to protect your family. I failed them.” At that, he bent one knee, the other resting on the docks. “I am Barristan Selmy, Kingsguard to your father. Allow me to join your Queensguard, and I will not fail you again,” he promised, bowing his head. 

Daenerys felt tears sting her eyes. He had known her family, he had protected them. Had the betrayal not been so great, from so many, perhaps he would have succeeded. Even the greatest of fighters cannot protect a person from enemies beyond counting. She hadn’t formed a Queensguard. Not yet. But she needed one, did she not? And who better to serve in it than the man who had protected her family to the best of his abilities?

Yes, she decided. She would take Barriston Selmy as part of her Queensguard. She would need him, just as she needed Ser Jorah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand here we are in season three! I did change the warlock assassin to a Faceless Man assassin. Why? ‘Cause the warlocks are dead, that’s why. Makes no sense to have them try and kill her if they’re dead, now does it? So instead, we’ve got Joffrey sending assassins to try and kill her. Which makes much more sense, thank you. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it. Lemme know what you think. 
> 
> Also: NO, Daenerys is NOT the burner of cities in this fic. She is merely saying that she would burn buildings in order to free slaves if she had to. She would NOT kill innocents. Not in my fic, thank you very fucking much.


	21. The Flaming Whip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys demonstrates the meaning of freedom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could give you ten million excuses as to why I haven’t updated in almost a month, but the truth of the matter is, I just suck. Sorry about that. If my lack of motivation bothers you, by the way, don’t worry. My boyfriend feels the exact same way. In the future, if you feel like I haven’t updated in awhile, you can give me a little push. Come bitch me out on Tumblr (imnotoverlyobsessive), or comment here, whatever. I won’t be offended or upset, it’ll just be like, “oh yeah, that’s a thing I’m supposed to be doing. I’m not working quite yet so I literally have zero reason not to write. If you’re annoyed at my sporadic updates, seriously: come bug me about it.

Chapter Twenty-one: The Flaming Whip

_Get so scared you got to scare them back. Become the monster that came to eat you._ \- Cato to Elizabeth, Underground

Daenerys had grown up running from one slave city to the next. She was no stranger toslavery. She’d walked past the pleasure houses in Lys. She’d seen tattoos beneath the dead eyes of Volantene slaves, all spirit beaten out of them long ago. Most of the Free Cities had a thriving economy thanks to slavery. The Dothraki, too, owned slaves. 

Slaver’s Bay, she was learning, was different. If someone told Daenerys that when the city was built, the builders had used the blood of slaves instead of water when making the city’s bricks, she wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised. The energy of Astapor alone was suffocating; she could feel the misery in the air, smell the blood, hear the cries of pain.

The Walk of Punishment, however, was the worst thing she’d seen in the city, or perhaps anywhere. It was hot, and the sun blared down on them, but to the slaves on the Walk of Punishment, the heat was probably an afterthought compared to the agony they were in. There were dozens and dozens of men, women, and children lining the wall of the city, chained to posts. Their chests and faces were whipped raw, and their heads hung. Beneath the lashes, each rib was prominent, each bone jutted out. 

She couldn’t tell which of them were asleep, still clinging on to life, and which were already dead.

“The Walk of Punishment is a warning, Your Grace,” Ser Barristan informed her. 

A warning? Warnings weren’t typically so inhumane, or so she’d like to think.

“To whom?” She asked him.

“To any slave who contemplate doing whatever these slaves did,” he followed her gaze towards once such slave, looking fearfully up at one of the so-called warnings before turning his eyes to the ground and hurrying after his master.

Stopping in front of one of them, she held out her hand to Ser Jorah. “Give me your water,” she commanded.

He handed her his canteen, but said, “Khaleesi, this man has been sentenced to death.” She merely fixed him with a look before ascending the steps to the man’s platform. The closer she got to him, the further the scent of blood mingled with that of the sea behind him.

She held the canteen to the man’s lips, and he seemed to wake. “Here, drink,” she said in soft, gentle High Valyrian. 

“Let me die,” he murmured weakly before appearing to go back to sleep. She withdrew the canteen slowly, horrified.

She kept her voice quiet, barely above a whisper. “Hold on. I swear to you, every slave in this city will be free before nightfall tomorrow. _Hold on_.” The man’s eyes opened slightly, but there was so little hope in them that she suspected he may not bother trying to survive. She hoped he would.

“Leave this place, Your Grace,” Ser Barristan implored of her. “Leave tonight, I beg you.”

“And what is she to do for soldiers?” Ser Jorah wondered. They’d been having this debate since the day Ser Barristan was told of their reason for being in Astapor. Ser Barristan didn’t approve of slave soldiers. Ser Jorah rationalized Daenerys’ need for them.

“We can find sellswords in Lentos and Myr,” the older knight responded swiftly.

Ser Jorah turned towards him. “Is it ‘we’ already, Ser Barristan?” He turned to Daenerys. “If you want to sit on the Throne your ancestors built, you must win it. That will mean blood on your hands before the thing is done.” 

“The blood of my enemies, not the blood of innocents,” she insisted, returning his canteen to him and walking onward. Ser Jorah and Ser Barristan followed close behind.

“How many wars have you fought in, Ser Barristan?”

“Three,” the older knight said.

“Have you ever seen a war where innocents didn’t die by the thousands?”

After a moment, Ser Barristan responded with a soft “no.”

“I was in King’s Landing after the sack, Khaleesi,” Ser Jorah addressed her directly then. “You know what I saw? Butchery. Babies, children, old men. More women raped than you can count. There’s a beast in every man and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand,” he explained. “But the Unsullied are not men. They do not rape. They do not put cities to the sword unless they’re ordered to do so. If you buy them, the only men they’ll kill are those you want dead.”

Wanting to be fair to her new advisor, she addressed him. “Do you disagree, Ser Barristan?”

He didn’t answer the question directly. “When your brother Rhaegar led his army into battle at the Trident, men died for him because they believed in him, because they loved him, not because they’d been bought at a slaver’s auction. I fought beside the last dragon on that day, Your Grace. I bled beside him.”

“Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, and Rhaegar died,” Ser Jorah reminded them. 

“Did you know him well, Ser Barristan?” Daenerys wondered. 

“I did, Your Grace,” he said softly. “Finest man I ever met.” 

“I wish I had known him,” Daenerys said honestly. He had died months before she’d even been born. “But he was not the last dragon.”

* * *

Standing before several slaveowners and their translator on their raised platform, Daenerys felt less like a queen and more like a little girl playing pretend. 

The translator seemed genuinely surprised when Daenerys informed her that she wanted every Unsullied in the barracks. “All? Did this one’s ears mishear, Your Grace?”

“They did not,” Daenerys said simply. “I want to buy them all.”

The translator relayed this to her master.

“She can’t afford them,” Kraznys said in his gruff voice. “The slut thinks she can flash her tits, and make us give her whatever she wants.”

If Viserys had not insulted her at every turn when they were children, she likely would not have been able to maintain her facade of ignorance. But she was used to being insulted. It did not phase her. The slavers’ many disrespects were far from the worst things that had been said to her.

“There are eight thousand Unsullied in Astapor,” the translator reminded Daenerys. “Is this what you mean by all?”

“Yes. Eight thousand,” Daenerys confirmed. “And the ones still in training as well.”

The slaver next to Kraznys, Greizhen, learned towards his companion. “If they fail on the battlefield, they will shame Astapor.”

“Master Greizhen says they cannot sell half-trained boys. If they fail on the battlefiled, they will bring shame upon all of Astapor,” the translator informed her.

“I will have them all or take none. Many will fall in battle. I’ll need the boys to pick up the swords they drop.” Daenerys neglected to inform them that her goal was to demand something she could not afford.

“The slut cannot pay for all of this,” Kraznys said with a roll of eyes.

“Master Kraznys says you cannot afford this,” the translator informed her.

“One of her ships will buy her one hundred Unsullied, no more, and this because I like the shape of her ass,” Kraznys said to the amusement of his companions, and the girl translated it, albeit far more politely.

“The gold you have left is worth ten,” Kraznys went on, “but I will give her twenty if it stops her ignorant whimpering. Her Dothraki smell of shit, but may be useful as pig feed. I will give her three for those.”

While the girl translated her master’s words, Daenerys looked up to see slaves looking down on them, and they served to further her resolve.

“So, ask this beggar queen,” Kraznys continued, “how will she pay for the remaining 7,877?”

Looking away from a slave girl no older than ten, Daenerys locked her eyes on Kraznys.

“I have dragons. I’ll give you one.”

While the girl translated Daenerys’ words to her master, Ser Barristan stepped forward quickly. “You will win the throne with dragons, not slaves, Your Grace.”

“Khaleesi, please,” Ser Jorah implored. Daenerys silenced him with a look. 

When she stepped closer to the slavers, Kraznys leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Three dragon,” he said in broken, heavily accented Common Tongue.

“One,” she insisted.

“Two.”

“One,” she repeated.

Kraznys leaned back to confer with his companions for a moment before coming to a decision.

“They want the biggest one,” the girl translated.

“Done,” Daenerys agreed.

Kraznys repeated the word back to her. She went to leave, but had a thought. “I’ll take you, as well. Now,” she said to the translator. “You’ll be Master Kraznys’ gift to me. A token of a bargain well struck.”

The girl hesitated before relaying the message to her master. “She asks that you give me to her, as a present. She asks that you do this now,” her words were slow and quiet, unsure.

The translator likely had been trained to translate her master’s words more politely than he himself had spoken them, and therefore when translating Daenerys’ words, the girl maintained her cautious nature. They would have to have a discussion about this if the girl chose to remain in Daenerys’ service. She needed her words translated verbatim with the confidence Daenerys herself said them, especially when she was speaking to her enemies.

Kraznys stared at Daenerys like she was a different species he couldn’t quite wrap his head around; he examined her unmoving stance, her unwavering gaze. She got the impression that he was unused to women presenting themselves in such a fashion. Had he never encountered a female who was sure of herself?

Ser Jorah addressed her decision as soon as they left the room. “Khaleesi, a dragon is worth more than any army.”

For once, Ser Barristan agreed with him. “Aegon Targaryen proved that.”

That was quite enough. She’d been planning on waiting until they returned to the boat, but could not wait any longer to reprimand them for their behavior.

“You’re both here to advise me. I value your advice, but if you ever question me in front of strangers again, you’ll be advising someone else. Is that understood?” She didn’t wait for a response before walking away and speaking to the girl. “Do you have a name?”

“This one’s name is Missandei, Your Grace,” the girl said, falling into step beside her.

“Missandei,” Daenerys repeated. “Do you have a family? A mother and father you’d return to if you had the choice?”

“No, Your Grace. No family living,” Missandei said. That, Daenerys supposed, was something they had in common. 

“You belong to me now. It is your duty to tell me the truth.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Missandei agreed. “Lying is a great offense. Many of those on the Walk of Punishment were taken there for less.”

“I offered water to one of the slaves dying on the Walk of Punishment. Do you know what he said to me? ‘Let me die.’”

“There are no masters in the grave, Your Grace.”

Daenerys blinked. “Indeed. You are free now, Missandei. I shall provide you with new clothes without a collar as soon as we return to my ship. If you choose to return to your home, I will assist you in doing so to the best of my ability. If you choose to stay in my service, you will serve as my handmaid.”

Missandei looked over at her, shocked. “F-free?” When Daenerys nodded, the girl looked at the ground again. “I have nowhere to go. I will serve as your handmaid.”

“Very well,” Daenerys said. She empathized with Missandei; neither of them had a home to return to, neither of them had a family. “Is it true what Master Kraznys told me about the Unsullied? About their obedience?”

“All questions have been taken from them,” Missandei told her. “They obey. That is all. Once they are yours, they are yours. They will fall on their swords if you command it.”

“And what about you?” Daenerys asked her. “You know that I’m taking you to war. You may go hungry. You may fall sick. You may be killed.”

“Valar morghulis,” Missandei responded.

“Yes, all men must die,” Daenerys agreed. “But we are not men.”

* * *

The sun was high overhead when Daenerys walked through the Plaza of Pride the following day, her entourage following behind her. Missandei was closest to her, wearing a dress she had chosen for herself. Free women chose their own clothes, Daenerys had told her. Her hair was intricately braided; it was nice to have someone to help with it again. 

It was hot and the air was dusty. The deeper in the city they were, the less one could smell the salty sea air. For many, the heat must have been unbearable. For Daenerys, though, it brought comfort. Comfort and confidence.

Kraznys did not greet her properly. Missandei translated for him, mincing his words, keeping them polite. “The master says they are untested. He says you would be wise to blood them early. There are many smalls cities between here and there, cities ripe for sacking.” As they neared the awning under which Kraznys stood, Daenerys noticed slaves and nobles alike crowding to see the foreign woman paying for every Unsullied in the barracks with a dragon. “Should you take captives,” Missandei continued to translate, “the masters will buy the healthy ones, and for a good price. And who know? In ten years, some of the boys you send them may be Unsullied in their turn. Thus, all shall prosper.” 

Missandei sounded displeased at the prospect of more slaves. Daenerys had assured her the night before that there would be no slaves serving under her, that anyone who followed her would do so of their own accord. Daenerys knew, though, that life as a slave taught people that hope was futile, and even with Daenerys’ promises, that hope was not easily reignited.

Saying nothing to Kraznys, she turned to the cage in which Drogon was being kept. It was hastily put together; she hadn’t caged her dragons in months, and they had long since outgrown the last set.

The spectators murmured, talking amongst themselves, wondering if the curiosity really existed at all, or if it was merely a cat with wings tied to it.

Drogon screeched when he emerged, his wings, growing larger by the day, flapping in the air.

She heard his voice questioning in her mind. _Mother?_

He was afraid she was truly going to give him away. _Don’t worry, my love. Be patient._

This seemed to reassure him. She held the chain far above her head, allowing Drogon to fly high enough for every spectator to get a good look at him. Kraznys looked on in amazement, clearly thrilled at the prospect of owning a dragon.

Although Drogon followed Daenerys willingly, not fighting against her in the slightest, as soon as Kraznys grasped the chain, her child flapped against its pull, the links going taut. He screeched at Kraznys angrily, who seemed unfazed. He shoved the whip in Daenerys’ hands. 

It had a golden handle that was intricately carved into the harpy of Astapor, and many leather throngs. She looked down at it, disgusted.

“Is it done, then?” She asked. “They belong to me?” Missandei translated her question.

“It is done,” Kraznys responded, glancing at her briefly before looking back up at Drogon, who was still flapping against the chain and screeching down at the slaver. It was the closest Daenerys had ever been to him. She could smell the heavy oils he anointed himself with.

“You hold the whip,” Missandei translated.

“The bitch has her army.” Daenerys glared at him for that, knowing full well he wouldn’t notice.

She walked towards the Unsullied, emotionless. Worn-looking slavers walked up and down the lines of soldiers, whips slack in their hands.

“Unsullied!” She called out in High Valyrian. As soon as she said the word, there were gasps all around the Plaza. She had made sure no citizen of Astapor had any idea she was anything but ignorant of the language.

In acknowledgment of her, there was the loud collective sound of shields being pulled to chests. Behind her, Drogon seemed to be getting more and more agitated. His screeching grew louder, angrier. The vigorous flapping of his wings could be heard even from a distance.

“Forward march!” Daenerys shouted, testing out the army. The momentous stomp of eight thousand feet sounded for a moment before she commanded, “halt!” They obeyed instantaneously. She smiled slightly, pleased with the outcome.

Behind her, Kraznys spoke. “Tell the bitch her beast won’t come.” 

Daenerys turned towards the slaver. “A dragon is not a slave.”

He stared at her in astonishment. “You speak Valyrian?” He demanded in outrage.

“I am Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, of the blood of Old Valyria. Valyrian is my mother tongue,” she said fiercely. Judging by the expression on his face, Kraznys was terrified. He knew that he had been deliberately deceived. Turning back to her new army, she addressed them once more. “Unsullied!” They slammed their spears on the ground in response. “Slay the masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who holds a whip, but harm no child. Strike the chains off every slave you see!”

The nobles were frozen for a moment, not quite believing their ears, but they regained motion when the first Unsullied thrust his spear through a slaver’s back.

“I am your master!” Kraznys called out desperately as Ser Jorah and Ser Barristan drew their swords, preparing for a fight. They was no need for that, though. “Kill her!” Kraznys yelled. “Kill her!”

Turning towards Drogon, she spoke directly to him in both speech and mind. “Dracarys.”

Without hesitation, Drogon breathed a stream of flames upon the slaver. The oils he wore made him burn faster, and he screamed and fell to the ground, thrashing as he died.

Before the dust had even settled around his body, one of the slavers rushed at Daenerys, a in hand, its blade glinting in the sun. Both her knights moved to defend her, but Daenerys was faster. She did nothing when the manticore rushed at her. She would not do nothing again.

Allowing flames to form in the palm that held the whip, she willed them to set its throngs alight. The man looked at the burning whip in horror, trying desperately to stop, but his momentum was too great and she swiped her hand out in front of her, and the burning leather slashed across his face. He dropped the knife, screaming, and Daenerys held her other hand at her side for half a second before raising it throwing fire at him, willing it to engulf him in seconds.

She stepped over the man’s burning body and climbed the steps to the platform, standing beside Kraznys’ corpse. She vaguely noticed that the edges of the cape she wore were on fire, and she put it out with a flick of her hand. Holding the flaming whip high above her head, she focused on burning it to a crisp as slaves looked on in awe, nobles in horror. When there was nothing left but ash on her hands, she smiled.

Later, when the dust had settled, the Unsullied had returned to their lines. She walked amongst them, Missandei following close behind. The girl hadn’t said anything yet. Daenerys wondered what she thought, if she still wanted to serve under her. Having ordered a horse be brought for her, Daenerys mounted it.

“Unsullied!” She addressed them once more. This time, they did not respond. “You have been slaves all your life. Today, you are free,” she declared. “Any man who wishes to leave may leave, and no one will harm him. I give you my word. Will you fight for me? As free men?”

There was silence for a moment, but then, one man began slamming his spear into the ground again and again. Then another joined him, and then another, and another. After a few seconds, every Unsullied in the Plaza of Pride was slamming their spears into the dirt.

She led them out the Plaza, eight thousand men and two thousand boys marching behind her, her dragons flying overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always thought it was bullshit Dany didn’t free Missandei explicitly and clearly like she does in the books. I added that in because goddammit it makes sense. And yes, I had her burn the whip instead of just discarding it. It was a way of showing her people what she can do without freaking them out too much all at once. I combined two episodes again, as well. There was really no reason not to. In any case, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	22. The Yellow City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys arrives at Yunkai.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s been awhile, you guys. My boyfriend and I moved from an apartment to a house, and the process has been… something else, lemme tell ya. I have been incredibly busy what with moving as well as working full time. Moving is hella expensive and now we’re broke af. We’ll be okay in the long run but man oh man, things are difficult in the short term. Rest assured, though, this fic is never going to be abandoned, even if it takes a little while for me to upload sometimes. It’ll happen eventually, though, I promise. I loved the show too much and care too much about rectifying it to abandon this fic. If you ever want to bug me about it, my tumblr username is imnotoverlyobsessive, so please do feel free to either leave a comment/review and ask or come talk to me there.

Chapter Twenty-two: The Yellow City  
 _Every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity._ \- William Shakespeare, Julius Ceasar

After marching her army out of the city and ordering them to set up camp so as to guard Astapor, as well as instructing them to choose their own leaders within their ranks, Daenerys had turned her horse around and gone back inside the gates. 

Ser Jorah and Ser Barristan followed close behind, as did Missandei, the forming two questioning her actions.

“Khaleesi, where are you going?” Ser Jorah asked her.

“Your Grace, we must leave Astapor quickly before word reaches the rest of Slaver’s Bay,” Ser Barristan warned.

Daenerys turned her horse around to address them. “That’s exactly why I’m not going to leave yet. I cannot let the people I have just freed be enslaved again. I must stay until I am sure they’re protected from that.”

The two men nodded, then mounted their own horses and returned with her inside the city. Missandei was perched atop her own steed, but stayed ever silent, watching Daenerys and listening to her words. The Unsullied were not the only slave soldiers in Astapor. They were simply the greatest slave soldiers. There were a number of others, and they were essential. 

Riding her horse back into the city, she rode past the Walk of Punishment. Most of the victims there had already been freed, and those that were deceased already were being clutched by their family members, finally able to grieve for their loved ones. The man Daenerys had offered water to only the day before had managed to live, it seemed, and was sitting down on the steps leading up to the pedestal where he would have died. Another slave was giving him water, and a child ran over to him with some bread. As she rode past, the man looked up her, smiling weakly.

Much of the city’s population had taken to following her and her entourage, and when Daenerys reached the dais at the Plaza of Pride, the majority of the citizens crowded in behind her, curious and afraid. Her horse stepped on the remains of the scorched whip. The chaos had dissipated, but most of the corpses had not been moved.

“People of Astapor,” Daenerys called out in High Valyrian. “You are no longer slaves. Each one of you is now free. You may leave the city if you so choose. Take the gold that once belonged to your former masters if you wish,” at that, some ran off with a smile. More still stayed, wanting to know what else she had to say. “I ride for Yunkai, and then Meereen, and one day, I shall sail to Westeros. You may come with me if you so choose, or you may stay here in Astapor.” Some of the citizens looked intrigued, but most looked nervous. “I intend to rule Slaver’s Bay. If I am to do that, there must be a population here, and I must instill soldiers to keep the peace. Anyone willing to do this, step forward.”

Several hundred men stepped forward. Every one of them wore slaves’ clothing. “Are you willing and able to protect the city of Astapor?” She asked them. The men collectively nodded. “Very well. Those of you who have experience in organization, come with me.” She dismounted, murmuring to Ser Jorah, “A table and chairs,” as she passed, Missandei close behind.  
Half a dozen men had followed her, as well as several women, and Daenerys seated herself at one of the simple chairs Ser Jorah had brought her, Missandei standing to her side. She gestured for the group to sit, and they did, looking from her to each other nervously.

Suddenly, one of them burst out, “thank you for freeing us, Your Grace.”

Daenerys smiled kindly at the man. “I didn’t free you,” she told him. “Your freedom is your own, and it was stolen from you. I am glad I was able to help you take it back.” From the awed expression the men shared, Daenerys guessed that no one had ever told them they were in charge of their own lives.

“Now then,” she began, leaning forward, “If you will consent to it, I will leave the city under your control as a group. You will have a dozen of my Unsullied here as well.”

One of the women spoke. “What do you mean the city will be under our control as a group?”

“You will be representatives of the city and its citizens,” Daenerys explained. “Having more than one ruler will prevent tyranny. I will receive weekly reports regarding the city, but should you be unable to come to an agreement or if you have any concerns, any one of you may send me a raven at any point and I will answer it personally.”

The group seemed pleased at this arrangement, and Daenerys answered several more of their questions before dismissing them.

* * *

Outside of Astapor again, Daenerys found herself standing before a group of Unsullied.

“These are the ones?” Daenerys asked her handmaiden.

“Yes, khaleesi. The officers.” The group stepped forward, each one of their unified steps kicking up dry, coarse dirt.

“You did not choose this life,” Daenerys observed in High Valyrian. “But you are free men now, and free men make their own choices. Have you selected your own leader from amongst your ranks?”

The men parted wordlessly, each movement unified amongst them, even down to their breaths, it seemed. A single man had not moved, indicating that this was the man chosen as the leader of all the Unsullied.

“Remove your helmet,” Daenerys told him, and the soldier did as commanded, walking forward with stiff, abrupt steps.

“This one has the honor,” the man said in unaccented High Valyrian. His face was without expression, his dark eyes without feeling. Daenerys wondered if all feeling had been beaten out of these men, if any identity remained in them at all.

“What is your name?” She asked him.

“Grey Worm,” he told her.

Daenerys blinked. “Grey Worm?” she murmured softly in confusion, turning her head slightly towards Missandei in silent request for an explanation.

“All Unsullied boys are given new names when they are cut,” Missandei informed Daenerys in the Common Tongue. “Grey Worm, Red Flea, Black Rat. Names that remind them what they are: vermin.”

Suddenly outraged all over again at the inhuman treatment all slaves faced, Daenerys clenched and unclenched her hands at her sides, fighting back the urge to give life to the ever-present fire around her, waiting for her to give it form. 

_They’re dead_ , Daenerys reminded herself. _The slavers are dead and these men are free now_.

Turning her gaze back to Grey Worm, she addressed the group as a whole, forcing her voice to remain steady and even. “From this day forward, you will choose your own names. You will tell your fellow soldiers to do the same. Throw away your slave name. Choose the name your parents gave you, or any other. A name that gives you pride.”

“Grey Worm gives me pride,” the soldier said with a slight nod. “It is a lucky name. The name this one was born with was cursed. That was the name he had when he was taken as a slave. Grey Worm is the name this one had the day Daenerys Stormborn set him free.”

  
At this, Daenerys became quite emotional. She had to retire to her tent for several minutes before she felt up to speaking to anyone. As it turned out, all the Unsullied felt this way. None of them remembered their given names, and cast scorn on the mere thought of the name they had been given at birth. 

When they began their march to Yunkai, Daenerys offered mounts to the Unsullied officers, as there were not enough horses for every soldier. Each man declined, saying he would prefer to march with his men than ride alone.

* * *

Yunaki was called the Yellow City for a good reason, Daenerys learned. From a distance, the city appeared to be made entirely of gold, and it shone brightly in the hot sun. As they neared the city, though, it became apparent that it the buildings had been crafted to resemble gold, but it was quite clear that they were not.

The buildings got progressively more elaborate and less run down as they reached the peak of the hill the city sat upon, and Yunkai’s pyramids seemed as if they might brush the clouds above them.

“The Yunkish train bedslaves, not soldiers,” Ser Barristan said as they observed the city from a nearby hill. “We can defeat them.”

Ser Jorah, ever one to argue with the older man, objected. “On the field, with ease. But they won’t meet us on the field. They have provisions, patience, and strong walls.” Ser Jorah glanced at Ser Barristan, then turned his gaze back to the city before them. “If they’re wise, they’ll hide behind those walls and chip away at us, man by man.” 

“I don’t want half my army killed before I’ve crossed the Narrow Sea,” Daenerys informed her companions. 

“We don’t need Yunkai, khaleesi,” Ser Jorah told her softly. “Taking this city will not bring you any closer to Westeros or the Iron Throne.” 

Daenerys looked at him, then back at the city. “How many slaves are there in Yunkai?”

“200,000, if not more.”

“Then we have 200,000 reasons to take the city,” Daenerys informed him. These people deserved their freedom just as much as any other. Turning to Grey Worm, she said, “tell the slavers I will receive them here and accept their surrender. Otherwise, Yunkai will suffer the same fate as Astapor.” 

Grey Worm nodded and left to give the order.

Several hours later, a camp had been set up outside the city, the tents made of elaborate fabrics from Qarth and Astapor. Daenerys had several tents for her own use, and currently, she sat on an intricately carved couch in her reception tent. It was airy and open, and if she looked up, she could see the path leading to the city gates, lined with Unsullied. Ser Jorah and Ser Barristan stood beside her on the dais, both men sweating slightly from the heat of the flames that surrounded it (flames under Daenerys’ control that she was careful not to allow to spread) and her children were perched nearby. Missandei stood at the tent’s entrance, ready to announce the slaver upon his arrival, and Grey Worm stood at the edge of the tent beside one of the Dothraki women Daenerys chosen as a handmaiden.

Reaching over to scratch between Viserion’s eyes absentmindedly and listening to him purr, she waited for the man she was to receive.

She was nervous, although she did not appear so. She had never received anyone before. For all her titles, Daenerys had yet to properly hold court. Drogo had never held court; the closest things had been the parties he’d thrown, and those were far more casual than this. Her brother, of course, had never had a court to begin with.

She didn’t want to intimidate anyone, not really. Still, though, she recognized it as necessary when a person was her enemy. And this man, the man she was to meet, he was a slaver. He did not deserve kindness or compassion.

As the minutes passed, Daenerys heard the distant beating of a drum which got progressively louder. Several minutes later, exhausted looking slaves carried a palanquin, upon which sat an elaborately dressed man whose face spoke of arrogance and fear. 

_Good_ , Daenerys thought. He _should_ be afraid. He didn’t know if she would keep her promise of safe passage. Nor did he know what she was capable of. There were only rumors, after all. 

The exhausted slaves lowered the palanquin into the dirt, and the slaver stood and walked forward, his nervous gaze switching from Rhaegal on his perch, Drogon at Daenerys’ side, and Viserion to her back.

“Now comes the noble Razdal mo Eraz of that ancient and honorable house, master of men and speaker to savages, to offer terms of peace.” Razdal stepped too close, however, and all three of her children reared their heads at him and screeched in anger. The man flinched. None of Daenerys’ companions did. They were used to her dragons.

“Noble lord,” Missandei continued, having been given instructions to use Daenerys’ full list of titles when introducing her to enemies. “You are in the presence of Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen of the blood of Old Valyria, Queen of the Andals, the Rhyonar, and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, and Wielder of Flames.”

“You may approach,” Daenerys said with a nod, flicking her intricately braided hair over her shoulder. “Sit,” she commanded, and the slaver regarded her silently as the Dothraki woman placed a chair before him, while Missandei prepared a cup of wine for him. Enemy or not, he was her guest.

He stepped around the chair, sitting down with his elaborate robes spread out around him.

“Will the noble lord take refreshment?” Missandei asked the man, who nodded silently in response, barely glancing up at her. The nervous frown never left Razdal’s face.

Daenerys smiled politely as he drank from the goblet Missandei had given him, then placed it on the carpet beneath him. 

He had begun to sweat from the fire.

Finally, he spoke. “Ancient and glorious is Yunkai. Our empire was old before dragons stirred in Old Valyria. Many an army has broken against our walls.”

Daenerys smiled at him again, and cocked her head to the side. “Perhaps you did not learn your history as well as you could have,” she told him, seeing anger flare in his face. Before he could open his mouth, he continued. “Yunkai was merely a colony of Old Ghis. The Valyrians destroyed old Ghis and conquered Yunaki. If not for the Doom, Yunkai would still belong to the Valyrians. I am merely here to take back what my ancestors lost with their deaths.”

Razdal’s face hardened further, and he said, “you shall find no easy conquest here, khaleesi.”

Daenerys retrieved a piece of raw meat from a gilded dish and tossed it into the air. Her children fought over it, screeching all the while. In her mind, they objected to not being given a fair share, but she hushed them, mentally reminding them that they’d be given a proper meal once their enemy left.

Pleased, they continued to fight amongst themselves, flapping their wings angrily about the tent. Razdal leaned back in his chair, clearly trying to hide the fear from his face, but failing to do so.

“Good,” Daenerys said with a smile, drawing his attention back to her. “My Unsullied need practice. I was told to blood them early.”

“If blood is your desire,” he leaned forward, “blood shall flow. But why?” He asked her. “Tis true, you have committed savageries in Astapor, but the Yunkai are a forgiving and generous people.” He clapped his hands twice, and two pairs of slaves stepped forward, each carrying bejeweled chests, straining with each step. “The wise masters of Yunkai have sent a gift for the silver queen.”

The slaves placed the boxes on the steps of the dais, opening them and backing away from the flames around them quickly, their heads bowed.

“There is far more than this awaiting you on the deck of your ship.” 

“My ship?” Daenerys raised her eyebrows at him, surprised. Perhaps when Ser Jorah had told her most cities chose to pay tribute to hordes rather than fight them, this is what he meant. The Yunkai were certainly going to great lengths to be rid of her.

“Yes, khaleesi,” the slaver responded. “As I said, we are a generous people. You shall have as many ships as you require,” he promised.

“And what do you ask in return?” She wondered.

“All we ask is that you make use of these ships. Sail them back to Westeros where you belong and leave us to conduct our affairs in peace.” Daenerys looked away from Razdal to the slaves who had brought the chests of gold bars in. They were kneeling before her, as if begging her to leave them to their chains. The fire surrounding the dais flared slightly. 

“Rest assured that the gold and ships will most certainly be put to good use. I thank you for them, and in return, I offer you a gift, as well: your life.”

“My life?” Razdal blinked.

“And the lives of your wise masters,” Daenerys confirmed. “But I also want something in return. You will release every slave in Yunkai.” The slaver’s eyes widened in surprise, and he lifted his head. “Every man, woman, and child shall be given as much food, clothing, and property as they can carry as payment for the years of servitude. Reject this gift, and I shall show you no mercy,” she smiled at him again.

“You are mad,” he accused, leaning forward. “We are not Astapor or Qarth. We are Yunkai, and we have powerful friends. Friends who would take great pleasure in destroying you. Those who survive, we shall enslave once more.” He stood up abruptly. “Perhaps we’ll make a slave of you as well.”

Daenerys laughed lightly. “I’d rather enjoy seeing you try.” At her words, the fire around the dais rose, just below the ceiling, and her children screeched in fury at him, Drogon extending his neck to poke through the flames. 

“You swore me safe conduct,” he objected nervously.

“I did,” she agreed. “But my dragons made no promises, and you threatened their mother.”

“Take the gold,” he commanded the slaves, and when they moved tentatively towards the dais, the flames shot out to meet around the dais steps, and Rhaegal flew to perch atop one of the chests, screeching angrily as his brothers joined him. The slaves backed away quickly.

“My gold,” Daenerys reminded Razdal. “You gave it to me, remember? And I shall put it to good use. You’d be wise to do the same with my gift to you.” With a tilt of her head, she told him, “you are dismissed.” He muttered in Valyrian as he walked towards his palanquin again, anger written on his face.

“The Yunkish are a proud people,” Ser Barriston told her. “They will not bend.” 

Daenerys gazed after the slaver and his entourage. “And what happens to things that don’t bend? She said he had powerful friends; who was he talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Ser Jorah said, looking down in thought.

“Find out,” she told him, and he left to do as she commanded. Drogon climbed onto the couch beside her, craving her attention. She held out her hand to him, and he nuzzled her affectionately, purring. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go, chapter 22! I hope you enjoyed it, and I apologize again for the long wait. When I last wrote, we were preparing to move, and now that we actually have, things have slowed down significantly.


	23. Promises and Vulgarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daenerys meets with The Second Sons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s been awhile, you guys. Since we last spoke, I’ve moved from an apartment to a house (yay!), had a tooth pulled, had a root canal, my dad got diagnosed with cancer (worry not, he’s getting treatment next month and it’s not a high risk cancer so he’ll be fine), been forced to get an ADA form for work so they can’t force me to work on my days off or for eleven hours straight, one of my best friends had her twins, another best friend of mine is getting married in South America so I’m having to plan for that trip since I’m in the wedding, and my second anniversary is in a couple weeks. So it’s been quite hectic. 
> 
> Anyways, if anybody’s interested in talking, I’m on tumblr. Username’s imnotoverlyobsessive. I have a discord, too; imnotoverlyobsessive#0843, for interested parties. Come tell me your thoughts, your fears, whatever. Ask about the fic or ask about something totally unrelated. Whatever you want, man.
> 
> Also, big ol’ shoutout to quetzaly, beta-and-brainstorming extraordinaire! Thanks for motivating me to write more and for giving me feedback!

Chapter Twenty-Three: Promises & Vulgarity  
 _Why do all the monsters come out at night? Why do we sleep where we want to hide?_ \- All Time Low, Monsters

“So,” Daenerys said, looking out at the unwashed men riding into their camp. She could smell them from where she stood. The dust their horses kicked up obstructed her view, and she found it rather difficult not to sneeze.

The sky was clear and vast above them, and the sun shone brightly behind the city of red stone. She knew all those she was with were sweltering. She wasn’t, of course; she liked the heat. It felt strange to wear a cloth over her head, but her companions had insisted that it was safest. Her hair was too noticeable. It shone even brighter against the sun, she was told. They’d spot her a hundred paces away with no difficulty. 

Ser Barristan directed her gaze at the men in question. There weren’t very many of them, it didn’t look like.

“Men who fight for gold have neither honor nor loyalty,” he warned her. “They cannot be trusted.” She frowned. That was something of a good thing, then, wasn’t it? They’d come over to her side easily, if they didn’t have honor or loyalty. Her dragons would persuade them, she’d insisted. And if not her dragons, her own abilities. Her advisors had insisted she keep her abilities a secret. And she supposed that was probably for the best. Nobody would think twice about underestimating her if they didn’t know what she could do.

“They can be trusted to kill you if they’re well paid, and the Yunkish are paying them well,” Ser Jorah said. This was a debate the two men had been having for some time. Ser Barristan didn’t approve of slave soldiers, either. But her Unsullied were not slave soldiers, not anymore. They were free men who chose to fight for her. The Second Sons could follow her, too, couldn’t they?

“You know these men?” she asked of her advisors.

“Only by the broken swords on their banners,” Ser Jorah informed her. “They’re called the Second Sons. A company led by a Baavosi named Hero, the Titan’s Bastard.”

“Is he more titan or bastard?” Daenerys wondered allowed, half-teasing.

Ser Jorah didn’t seem to find her joke amusing. “He’s a dangerous man, Khaleesi. They all are.”

Perhaps he is, she thought. But I’m dangerous, too.

* * *

  
“Your Grace,” began Ser Barristan in her formal receiving tent. “Allow me to present the captains of the Second Sons: Mero of Braavos, Prendahl na Ghezn, and…” He trailed off.

The third captain, a tall man with dark hair and a short beard, gazed directly at her as he said, “Daaro Naharis,” not lowering his head as he bowed.

She wished he’d break her gaze instead of looking at her like that. 

The man in the middle, Mero, swaggered forward with an arrogance that reminded Daenerys of Drogo in his worst moments. “You’re the Mother of Dragons?” 

She smiled slightly in response. This man made her uncomfortable, too.

“I swear I fucked you once in a pleasure house in Lys,” he told her in his gruff voice.

“Mind your tongue,” snapped Ser Jorah, and she glared at him.

“Why?” he swaggered forward further, up onto the dais she sat upon. “I didn’t mind hers,” he plopped himself down next to her, and she smiled indulgently at him. “She licked my ass like she was born to do it,” he flicked his tongue out at her several times, and she forced herself not to flinch or gag.

He sniggered, and gestured to Misandei, who was standing beyond where Daario Naharis sat on the steps to the dais. He was disrespectful, too, it seemed, though not a fraction as much as this… Mero. “You, slave girl,” he said with a nod. “Bring wine.”

“We have no slaves here,” Daenerys informed him politely as Missandei obeyed the command. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her friend shaking slightly. 

Mero sighed and looked from Daario to Daenerys. “You’ll all be slaves after the battle unless I save you,” he told her with a nod. Her jaw clenched. The sheer arrogance of this man. She was a slave before. Missandei, too. She’d burn Mero of Braavos alive before she let it happen again. She didn’t respond. He continued speaking anyway. “Take off your clothes and come and sit on Mero’s lap and I may give you my Second Sons.”

“Give me your Second Sons and I might reconsider burning you alive,” she told him bluntly. Damn. Couldn’t have kept it in, it seemed. Oh well. She supposed it was probably for the best he learned she wouldn’t passively let him debase her ears forever.

He snorted. She found it amusing rather than infuriating. He didn’t think she could kill him. Nobody ever thought she was capable of much, not until they saw that she was.

“Ser Barristan,” she asked. “How many men fight for the Second Sons?”

“Under two thousand, Your Grace,” said the knight.

“We have more, don’t we?” She wondered, turning her gaze to Mero with a smile.

“Eight thousand Unsullied, Your Grace,” Ser Barristan returned in his monotone voice.

Mero shrugged. “The Second Sons have faced worse odds and won.”

Ser Jorah sniggered. “The Second Sons have faced worse odds and run,” he pointed out. Mero was silent.

“Or,” Daenerys said with a smile, “you could fight for me.” She felt Daario Nahris’ gaze on her. She wished, once again, that he’d look away. Or even just not look at her quite so long. She was beginning to feel sick to her stomach.

Mero laughed, taking a swig of wine and gesturing to Missandei to pour him more. “We’ve taken the slavers’ gold. We fight for Yunkai.”

“That’s no matter. I can pay more,” Daenerys assured him. To her horror, he attempted to sniff Missandei’s groin as she shakily refilled his goblet of wine, and the poor girl flinched away, nearly spilling her pitcher of wine.

She fixed Daenerys with a look, as if to say, “are you really trying to negotiate with this man?” She’d have to assure Missandei after he left that neither of them would be anywhere near this man ever again.

“Our contract is our bond,” explained Prendahl na Ghezn, who seemed entirely unused to his companion’s vulgarity. “If we break our bond, no one will hire the Second Sons again.”

“That’s not a problem, either,” Daenerys said simply. “Ride with me and you’ll never need another contract. You’ll have gold and castles and lordships of your choosing when I take back the Seven Kingdoms.” Daario Naharis was still staring at her. Pretending not to notice, she turned to Mero. “There will be no slaving or raping, of course, but I’m sure your… men can work around that,” she told him pointedly.

“You have no ships or siege weapons. You have no calvary,” Daario Naharis pointed out. Ah, she thought. It seems he’s been paying attention after all. 

Finally turning to look at him, Daenerys shrugged. “A fortnight ago, I had no army,” she reminded him. A year ago, I had no dragons.” Turning back to Mero, she told him, “you have two days to decide.” 

He leered at her, learning forward with a smirk she would very much like to forget. “Show me your cunt,” he ordered her. “I want to see if it’s worth fighting for.”

Ser Jorah put his hand on his sword, and Daenerys gave him a look. She could handle this man if it came to that. 

Dangerous he may be, but he burned the same as everyone else.

“My Queen,” Grey Worm said in a gruff voice. “Shall I slice out his tongue for you?” 

“These men are our guests,” she reminded him in High Valyrian. In Common Tongue, she said, “you seem to be enjoying my wine. Perhaps you’d like a flagon to help you ponder.”

“Only a flagon?” Mero asked, raising an eyebrow. “And what are my brothers in arms to drink?” He jerked his chin in their direction.

“A barrel, then,” she offered with a smile.

“Good,” he stood and turned towards her. “The Titan’s Bastard does not drink alone.” The other captains followed his lead and stood with him. Descending the dais, he turned back to her. “In the Second Sons, we share everything. After the battle, maybe we’ll all share you.”

Daenerys found this to be highly unlikely, but did not say as much. Daario Nahris smiled at her as he left, and she had to make a conscious effort not to cringe. 

He swatted Missandei on the backside as he passed, saying, “I’ll come looking for you when this is over.” Her friend flinched, and Daenerys glared fiercely at his retreating back.

“Ser Barristan,” she said, still glaring at Mero. “If it comes to battle, kill that one first if you have to. But I’d rather I had the pleasure myself.”

“Gladly, Your Grace,” he said, looking at her sternly.

* * *

That night, Daenerys was preparing for bed in the royal tent. Missandei brushed her hair in the candlelight, and when she went to set the brush down, there was a scuffling sound and a gasp. 

  
Whipping her head around, she found her beloved friend with a knife to her throat being held by Daario Naaharis in Unsullied Armor. Missandei’s eyes were petrified, more so than Daenerys had seen before, and Daenerys stood slowly, as if sudden movements would spook the man into hurting Missandei.

“What do you want?” she demanded of him. 

“You,” he told her softly.

Daenerys felt sick for a number of reasons, but she spoke regardless. “Let her go,” she told him, keeping her voice firm.

“Don’t scream, lovely girl,” Daario whispered in her ear, and Missandei shook, stumbling forward as he released her. She rushed to Daenerys’ side, and Daenerys clasped her friend’s hand, stepping in front of her, closing her dressing gown around her front as she crossed her arms under her chest.

“You were sent here to kill me?” Daenerys guessed. He nodded with a chuckle. “Why haven’t you, then?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to.” 

“What do your captains have to say about that?” She asked.

“Ask them,” he suggested, removing a leather bag that had blood dripping from the corners from his shoulders, and overturned it with a smile. The severed heads of Mero and Prendahl na Ghezn rolled onto the tent’s floor.

“Why?”

“We had… philosophical differences,” he informed her with a sigh.

She blinked. “Over what?”

“Your beauty. It meant more to me than it did to them.”

“You’re a strange man,” she observed. 

“I’m the simplest man you’ll ever meet,” he raised his arms slightly, shrugging his shoulders. “I only do what I want to do.”

“Are you trying to impress me?” She wondered.

He smiled again, nodding. “Yes.”

Well, she thought, at least he’s honest.

“Why would I trust a man who murders his comrades?” She demanded.

“They ordered me to murder you,” he told her bluntly. “I told them I preferred not to. They told me I had no choice. I told them Daario Narhis, and I always have a choice.” She noticed he smiled whenever he said his own name. “They drew their swords,” he shrugged again. “And I drew mine.”

She stepped forward. Missandei stayed behind her. “Will you fight for me?” She asked him. He nodded, his jaw set. She raised her chin. “Swear to me.”

He drew his arakh and kneeled. She kept her head held high, but looked down enough to see him. “The Second Sons are yours and so is Daario Naharis.” She could’ve done without the last part, but then he continued. “My sword is yours, my life is yours, my heart is yours.” But then he bowed his head, and she decided that if it came to it, she’d rebuff him. If it was necessary.

She just hoped it wouldn’t be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woot woot chapter 23! watch think?


End file.
